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HENRY LAURENS 

(Replica by Copley) 
From the original in the possession of Mr. Henry Rutledge Laurens, of Charleston, S. C. 



The 
Life of Henry Laurens 

With a Sketch of the 
Life of Lieutenant- Colonel John Laurens 



By 

David Duncan Wallace, Ph.D. 

Professor of History and Economics in WoflFord College 
Member South Carolina Historical Society, etc. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

XTbe "RnicF^ecbocftcr ©ress 

1915 



Copyright, 191 5 

BY 

D. D. WALLACE 



Ube ftniclietbochec press, Dew l^orb 

©GI,A401863 
JUL 22 1915 



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J3X 



MY MOTHER 

TO WHOM CHIEFLY 
I OWE MY INTEREST IN HISTORICAL STUDIES 



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PREFACE 

SEVERAL years ago Prof. Charles W. Kent, of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, asked me to prepare a sketch of Henry 
Laurens for the Library of Southern Literature, to which in my 
ignorance I readily consented. I soon found that the sketches, 
eulogies, monographs, etc., from which one can usually throw 
together an article were in this case very much lacking. Dr. 
David Ramsay, who numbered Laurens as the last of his three 
eminent fathers-in-law, published a brief sketch in 1808 in his 
History of South Carolina, which has been variously pillaged, 
plagiarized, and distorted from time to time since, and which is 
invaluable as a character sketch, but otherwise very lean. 
Dr. Francis Wharton, in the sketches of the diplomatists of 
the Revolution in the first volume of his Diplomatic Corre- 
spondence of the American Revolution, gives a very incisive re- 
view and criticism of Laurens's life on the national stage which 
is, however, disfigured by filling in the plenteous gaps in his 
information by atrocious innuendoes, erroneous inferences and 
outright misstatements. Besides these there was a rather 
meager and widely scattered body of Laurens's published 
writings. I resorted to the Laurens MSS. in the South Caro- 
lina Historical Society collections and found them an unworked 
treasure field. With every spadeful my interest grew. I 
found that here was a great and good man who had lain for a 
century in an unjust neglect. My quickened interest in the 
historical material was equalled by my affectionate esteem for 
the man. I determined to write his life. I hope I have 
succeeded in bringing from a neglect, which is as unfortunate 
for ourselves as undeserved for him, a man whom Professor 
Tyler calls "the noblest Roman of them all — the unsurpassed 



vi Preface 

embodiment of the proudest, finest, wittiest, most efficient, 
and most chivalrous Americanism of his time. "^ 

I have quoted largely from Laurens's papers, for the reason 
that he has never been heard in his own voice through the 
publication of his works. His extensive and forceful writings 
have been so inaccessible as to remain generally unknown even 
among students of American history. 

A list of all the sources which I have used to any extent is 
found in the bibliography. More important than all others is 
the body of MSS. in the South Carolina Historical Society com- 
prising thousands of pages of his letter books and occasional 
memoranda, all too few, of speeches, debates, quarrels, etc. 
All references to Laurens's letters are to these MSS. unless 
otherwise stated. Other important collections of Laurens's 
MSS. are in the Library of Congress, the New York Public 
Library, the Long Island Historical Society Library, and the 
Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; while the 
Charleston Library Society, the American Philosophical 
Society of Philadelphia, and a number of others, possess val- 
uable newspapers, pamphlets, and letters. The Carnegie 
Institution of Washington opened to me the valuable collec- 
tion of transcripts of letters from many sources which are to 
be published as Letters from Members of the Continental 
Congress. Laurens's letters are among the most numerous in 
the collection. The few unpublished Laurens letters still, 
I have reason to believe, in private hands in New York 
and other places I have not seen. I can only hope that I 
have missed nothing essential. For the errors and oversights 
which I cannot hope entirely to have escaped I can only 
crave charitable indulgence. 

In a work of this kind I do not see the use of stickling for 
every capital and punctuation mark's being exactly as in the 
original, as this often serves only to distract attention by its 
oddity. In a number of papers, especially when of particular 
importance, I have left punctuation and capitals exactly as in 
the original ; in most others I have modernized punctuation 
and capitals. Which usage is employed readily appears on 

^ Literary History of the American Revolution, ii., 242-3. 



Preface vii 

the face of the extract. Beyond this, I have taken absolutely 
no liberty with the MS., not even, so far as I can recall, to 
correct that rare error, a misspelled word. I have concealed, 
twisted, glozed over nothing in either his private or public 
life, and under this treatment Laurens stands an unspotted 
man whose character could not be soiled by the publication 
of every line that has come down of the thousands of pages in 
which for forty-five years he recorded the activities of his 
life and the sentiments of his heart. 

All dates previous to September 3, 1752, the first day of the 
corrected calendar, and called September 14, are either marked 
Old Style or are corrected to New Style except in the case of 
letters, statutes, etc., whose dates are always quoted as in the 
original for convenience in reference. The year is, of course, 
also corrected for all dates between January i st and March 24th, 
inclusive, before 1753. This may lead at times to apparent 
contradiction, as most writers on South Carolina history have 
not corrected the dates. I consider that it is essential to do 
so in order to be on the same basis as the rest of the world. 

It is a pleasure to acknowledge obligations to many friends. 
If I may distinguish some apart from others, I would thank 
Mr. Henry Rutledge Laurens, the great-grandson of Henry 
Laurens and present head of the family, for traditions, anec- . 
dotes, and valuable details of family history; Mr. H. E. 
Ravenel and Dr. Yates Snowden for the loan of rare books and 
pamphlets. The librarians in charge of the manuscripts of the 
various libraries not only made my task as pleasant as possible, 
but in several instances supplied me with valuable facts 
from their own knowledge of the field. I am especially 
under obligations to Miss Mabel L. Webber, of Charleston, 
Mr. Wilberforce Eames, of New York, and Dr. I. Minis 
Hays, Mr. Bunford Samuel, and Mr. Ernest Spofford, of 
Philadelphia. My father and President H. N. Snyder, of 
Wofford College, have rendered the valuable service of reading 
the proofs. The help of other friends is acknowledged in foot- 
notes. It is a pleasure to thank my wife for her interest 
and practical assistance. D. D. W. 

WoFFORD College, Spartanburg, S. C, January 22, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I Ancestry and Early Life, 1680-1749 .... 

II Society and Industry in South Carolina in the 
Middle of the Eighteenth Century, 1740-60 

III Political Conditions in South Carolina in the Middle 

OF the Eighteenth Century, 1725-56 , 

IV The Charleston Merchant, 1747-70 . 

V Family Life and Traits of Character, 1750-70 . 

VI The Foreign Slave Trade in South Carolina in the 
Eighteenth Century, i 703-1 807 . 

VII Early Public Life and the Cherokee War, 1757-61 

VIII Excited Politics, 1762-64 

IX Laurens and the Stamp Act, 1765-66 . 

X The Great Land Owner and Planter — Growth of 
Population and Industry, 1767-68 



XIII The Wilkes Fund Dispute and the Alienation of South 

Carolina from the Royal Government, 1769-74 

XIV Family Life and Educational Interests, 1771 

XV Residence Abroad to Educate his Sons, 1771-74 

XVI The Revolutionary Movement in South Carolina 
DURING 1775-77 

XVII First Months in the Continental Congress, 1777 

XVIII The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 . 



35 
44 
57 

72 

95 
109 
116 



123 

XI Troubles with the Court of Vice-Admiralty, 1767-68 137 
XII The Townshend Laws and Non-Importation, 1767-70 150 



159 

177 

185 

199 
226 
243 



X Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 257 

XX The French Aliance, Finances, etc., 1778 . . .276 

XXI The Deane-Lee Matter and Laurens's Resignation 

OF THE Presidency, 1778-79 .... 305 

XXII Criticizes Robert Morris — Desires a Constitutional 

Convention, 1778-79 329 

XXIII Last Months in Congress — Fisheries, etc., 1779 . 338 

XXIV Mission to the Netherlands and Imprisonment in 

the Tower of London, 1780-81 .... 355 

XXV Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 390 

XXVI Life in South Carolina, 1784-92 .... 420 

XXVII Opinions and Character. ...... 432 

Appendix I. Sketch of the Life of Lieutenant-Colonel John 

Laurens .......... 463 

Appendix II. (To Chapter XI.) Henry Laurens's Paper on 
American Customs Officers and Courts of Vice-Admiralty, 

1769 495 

Appendix III. Genealogy of the Laurens Family, i 680-1 792 502 

Appendix IV. (To Page 98.) The Cherokee Cession of 1753, 

AND Fort Prince George ....... 503 

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . • 511 

Index 517 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Henry Laurens ..... Frontispiece ^ 

(Replica by Copley) 

From the original in the possession of Mr, Henry Rutledge 
Laurens, of Charleston, S. C. 

Lieut -Colonel John Laurens .... 460 ^ 

(Replica by Copley) 

From the original in the possession of Mr. Henry Rutledge 
Laurens, of Charleston, S. C. 



The Life of Henry Laurens 



The Life of Henry Laurens 



CHAPTER I 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE 



SEE that swarthy, well-knit man, somewhat below the 
middle size walking straight down East Bay with a quick, 
decided, confident step. A prompt, busy-looking gentleman 
who, you may be sure, has his business well in hand. ^ That is 
Henry Laurens, the importer and commission merchant, as 
he goes along the wholesale quarter near the wharves and 
warehouses. The face is that of a man very much the master 
of himself, his resources and his moods and passions. Those 
lips, naturally so firm as not to need to be compressed, look 
suited to say sharp things if their owner chooses, and doubtless 
he will sometimes choose. The nose, not long but drooping 
just a little at the end so as to hide the nostrils, sorts well with 
such a mouth; the eyes are very watchful, eyes, said an 
unfriendly critic once, that warn an opponent to be upon his 
guard and having in them a quizzical, twinkling humor that 
carries the suggestion both of fun and biting wit. The whole 
man looks aggressive and just a bit cock-sure. As he sits to 
have his picture painted he leans forward and rests his knuckles 

' Note his portraits; also his order for stockings in 1767 describing his 
legs as short and stout. He was practically never sick until a spell of 
several weeks' poor health in the autumn and winter of 1765-6, at the 
age of 41-2. Laurens to Fisher, Feb. 27, 1766, in Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania. 

I 



2 Life of Henry Laurens 

on the writing-table as though impatient to return to his 
papers. The face is roundish, and firm about the jaws. It 
is in truth a "keen, intelligent, yet rather melancholy coun- 
tenance, " the last particularly after the years had done their 
sad work. He might be a Frenchman of the soberer, more 
earnest type, perhaps a Huguenot. He is such a man, in 
blood and character as well — an American Huguenot, active, 
aggressive, successful, religious, and very decided. "I go 
to church and come home again, " he writes in 1767; "to the 
House of Assembly and return to my habitation, avoiding all 
disputes about tenets, refined politics, and party. At home I 
am always cheerful and never sad, which speaks the general 
state of my mind." This is Henry Laurens, the successful 
man of affairs, in his prime. 

We are not able to trace the Laurenses into a very remote 
antiquity. The name was common in the west and southeast 
of France and was borne by many families having no known 
connection, so much so, indeed, that many years before our 
family left France there were numbers of Laurenses in New 
York, sometimes with the same Christian names as the ones we 
are tracing. ^ The family in which we are interested, however, 

' De Ribbe, Une famille au X.VIe Steele, 107, n.; Baird's Huguenots; 
Collections of the Huguenot Society of America; Collections of New York 
Genealogical Society, ii., 137, etc. There appears to be no ground for the 
statement sometimes made in recent times that the family is descended from 
the distinguished Andr6 du Laurens, the physician of both Henry IV. and 
his queen, Marie de' Medici, Chancellor of the University of Montpellier, 
the author of extensive medical works and belonging to the lower nobility, 
Henry Laurens knew nothing of such a connection, as will appear below. 
There are ample reasons to render it highly improbable that any such 
existed, not to go further than the fact that Henry's father, from whom he 
drew his family history, the son of the refugee, shoidd not have known of it. 
The refugee, who left France only seventy-three years after the death of 
Andr6 du Laurens, was a man of intelligence and social standing and 
would have known and cherished his descent from one of the most distin- 
guished savants of his time, a favored friend of his sovereign and moreover 
a member of a large family almost every son of whom attained eminence. 
He would also have been quite likely to keep his name Du Laurens, as that 
of the physician was as far back as we can go and remained as long as there 
was a descendant to bear it, as indicative of his aristocratic extraction. 
Aside from this and more to the same effect, the following seems to be con- 



Ancestry and Early Life 3 

were evidently people of good standing in France ; for some time 
after 1716 their descendants were generally too proud to follow 
trades ; the coat of arms appears to go back to the old French 
home ; the possession of old title deeds, and particularly of old 
commissions, by Henry Laurens's father indicates previous 
prominence, as does also the prosperity of a near kinsman in 

elusive. The distinguished physican's family came from Savoy and settled 
in Provence. In the quotations which follow the writer is tracing the dis- 
appearance of the family which became extinct largely by reason of the 
celibacy of many of its members — bishops, abbots, and high officials in 
Catholic orders: 

" Andr^, le mMecin de Henri IV., mort en 1609, avait eu de son mariage 
avec Anne de Sanguiti de Livry un fils et deux filles. Mais ce fils demeura 
stranger k la Provence; apres avoir 6t6 quelque temps d'arm^e, il devint 
gentilhomme de la chambre du Roi, et mourut sans posterity. Une des 
filles, nomm^e Marie, avait 6pous6, le 12 Mars 1627, Frangois du Culant, 
seigneur de Monceaux. " — Charles de Ribbe: Une famille au XVIe sihcle, 
d'apr^s des documents originaux. Alfred Mame et Fils, 6diteurs, Tours. 
MDCCCLXXIX, p. 132. 

"Toute cette nombreuse famiUe ne se trouva done plus representee, 
apvhs une generation, que par les trois fils d'Antoine, dont I'un etait pr^tre. 
De ce c6t6-lh,, du moins, y eut-il quelque descendance? Moreri mentionne 
un abbe, Pierre de Laurens, fils de Robert (Robert, son of Antoine the 
brother of Andre) qui fut successivement docteur en Sorbonne, grand 
prieur et vicaire de Cluny, puis eveque de Belley, et mourut le 17 Janvier 
1705. Sg^ de 87 ans. Mais nous n'avons aucun renseignement sur les 
autres, en sorte que nous ignorons si la famille s'est continuee, loin de la 
Provence, ou si elle s'est eteinte. " — lb., 132-3. 

This follows immediately : 

"Certes lorsque Jeanne (the sister of Andre, who wrote a sketch of the 
family) se montrait si justement fiere 'd'etre sortie d'une telle race ', celle-ci, 
bien que deja tvhs decimee, semblait avoir encore devant elle quelque avenir. 
Et cependant elle a disparu, ou, s'il en est reste quelques rejetons, la tradi- 
tion s'est rompue pour eux. Des lors une question se pose: — N'a-t-U pas 
manque quelque chose aux du Laurens pour se perpetuer? " Then goes on 
to enumerate the virtues of the family and quote Scripture on the prosperity 
of such. — lb., 133. 

Besides De Ribbe's Une famille au X Vie siecle, see article on Andre du 
Laurens in Firmin Didot's Nouvelle Biographie Generale. I am under 
obligations to Dr. Grasset of the University of Montpellier, who worthily 
carries forward the scientific ideals of his distinguished predecessor in the 
same institution, and his learned cousin, M. Emile Bonnet, for first direct- 
ing me to the sources of information regarding Andre du Laurens. 



4 Life of Henry Laurens 

Holland early in the eighteenth century. Henry Laurens's 
grandfather Jean Laurent (as it was sometimes spelled) was a 
merchant in Rochelle, and died before 1681, leaving his 
widow, Elizabeth Menigaut (Manigault) and a son Andr€. 
They resided in the parish of Saint Sauveur. Among the 
closest and oldest friends of the Laurenses were the family of 
Daniel Lucas, also a merchant of Rochelle, who owned a small 
farm near-by at Perigny. In 1682, when the pressure of per- 
secution was waxing heavier, Andrd Laurens and his widowed 
mother and Daniel Lucas, his wife Jeanne Marchand and their 
four children, fled to England. Madame Jeanne Lucas soon 
died in her new home ; but the friendship between the families 
grew into a closer bond when the widow's son and the widower's 
daughter — Andre Laurens and Marie Lucas — were married in 
the French church in Threadneedle Street, February 22, 1688, 
Old Style, I presume.^ 

The Laurenses tried their fortunes in Ireland, and from 
Ireland they migrated to New York, which had already 
received many of their faith and name, if not of their kin. 
Others of the family fled from the persecution in France to 
Holland, where they showed the same thrifty intelligence as the 
American branch by likewise growing rich. Their correspond- 
ence gradually ceased and the connection was entirely lost. 

The new-comers in New York were not among strangers, 
for the numerous colony whose interests centered around the 
French church were a sympathetic community, living very 
much its own distinct life, and there are several reasons for 
supposing that they had Laurens relatives in the town. We' 
find mother and son in 1 700 as witnesses at the marriage of a 
Jean Laurens and Marie Benereau.* 

'Baird's Huguenots, i., 282-3. Both Baird and Ramsay (Memoirs of 
Mrs. Martha Laurens Ramsay, 11) say Marie Lucas and Andr^ Laurens 
were both born in Rochelle. Other spellings in the old records are Lorans, 
Lauran, Lauren, Luca.) 

' Collections Huguenot Society of America, i., 74. The names as given 
are "Elizabeth Mangaux" and Andr6 Laurens. Women appear to be 
always called by their maiden names in these records. Men are sometimes 
recorded by only Christian names. 



Ancestry and Early Life 5 

We have the record of the birth of two sons and a daughter to 
Andr^ Laurens in New York. March 30, 1696 (O. S.) , was born 
the son on whom the family name was to depend, the father of 
the subject of this biography, who was christened Jean Samuel, 
in honor, perhaps, of the new friend Samuel Grasset, of whom 
more anon, though the fine old Bible names were common 
enough in all the families for Marie Laurens to have had a brother 
Samuel to name their son for, as she did another son Auguste. ^ 

We know nothing further concerning the Laurenses in New 
York except the family of the girl who, upon the eve of their 
departure for Charleston, became the wife of young Jean and 
the ancestress of the family which was to attain distinction. 
This family, the Grassets, fled from France about the same 
time as the Laurenses and Lucases. "Augustus and Marie 
Grasset, naturalized in England, March 8, 1682 (O. S. I 
presume), came as early as 1689 to New York, where Grasset 
became a leading merchant and government official, and one of 
the * chefs de famille' of the French church. He was murdered 
in the negro insurrection, April 7, 1712."^ We find the 
Laurenses and Grassets standing godparents for each other's 
children. About 1700 appears a Samuel Grasset along with 
his wife Martha Poupin or Poupain, industriously registering 
his offspring, one of whom he named Auguste, we may infer, 
for his father. There were several Esther Grassets; the girl 
of this name born in 1700 whom young John Laurens married 
in about 1 7 1 5 or -i 6, was probably Samuel Grasset's daughter. ^ 
At all events we arrive at this very important fact : that the 
pure Huguenot Jean Laurens as a youth of about nineteen, in 
1715 or -16, married the pure Huguenot Esther, or Hester, 
Grasset; and in that unmixed Huguenot ancestry lies very 
largely the explanation of Henry Laurens their son, the 
American statesman.'' 

» Collections Huguenot Society oj America, i., 47. 

' Baird's Huguenots, i., 289, n. i. 

3 Son Auguste was bom March 15, 1699, thus leaving some new arrival 
due to Samuel Grasset in 1700 whom we do not find otherwise specified. 
Collections Huguenot Society, i., 54, 63, et passim. 

* The Laurens family record of today spells the name Grosset. The 



6 Life of Henry Laurens 

Andr6 Laurens remained in New York, it seems, about 
twenty years ; but despite the fact that he was among his own 
people, the restlessness was upon him of a man driven from 
his first home and finding no place like the old one to place his 
foot. The widowed mother was no more, and in 1715 or -16 
Andr6, now probably past fifty, gathered his family together 
and sailed for Charleston, where he found his fifth and last 
residence. His son, Jean Samuel, or as he is henceforth called 
simply John, brought with him his fifteen- or sixteen-year-old 
wife, Hester (or Esther) Grasset, the marriage, we may imagine, 
one of the last scenes in the old home, surrounded by friends 
in the old French church with feelings suitable for such a 
joining and such a parting.^ 

Andr^ Laurens, the refugee and immigrant, died soon after 
settling in South Carolina. Few as are the lines in which we 
can sketch him, yet he stands out as a man of piety, shrewd- 
ness and force. At the time when the htunble foundations 
were being laid for the great fortunes and family careers which 
the next two generations were to witness, he did his part in giv- 
ing his children their start in the race. ' ' He had saved so much 
money as enabled him to set up four sons and one daughter 
with such portions as put them above low dependence."^ 

change of the letter can easily be understood. Grasset is certainly 
correct. The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books has many 
Grassets but only two Grossets. I did not find Grosset in the old 
New York records until 1708, and then evidently changed by time, as 
it was attached to the same old Grasset family names. There was another 
Jean Laurens, older than our character, in New York at this time, and 
perhaps a kinsman. "Andr^ Lauran" and "Elyzabeth Mangaux, " our 
immigrants, witnessed his marriage in 1700 and Andr6 was godfather to his 
child, born May 30, 1713 (O. S.) after the father's death. Collections Hugue- 
not Society of America, i., 75, 129. 

' The will of Jane Berryman, of New York, March 24, 1701 (O. S.), is 
witnessed by " Andrew Laurens. " — New York Historical Society Cols., 
1893, "Abstracts of Wills," ii., 82. The family record says the coming to 
Charleston was May 20, 17 16. Henry Laurens, in the latter part of 1774, 
quoted below, says "in 171 5." The family record gives the birth of Esther 
Grasset as in 1700. For other data see the letter of Henry Laurens, Feb. 
25, 1774, below. 

' Henry Laurens's letter of Feb. 25, 1774, below. 



Ancestry and Early Life 7 

The establishment of the American-born John with his 
American-born wife as an independent householder in their 
new home in Charleston, away from the clannish group in 
which they had been born and reared, marked the beginning of 
a life fully incorporated with that of the general community. 
Though there was a Huguenot church in Charleston, he identi- 
fied himself with the Episcopal St. Philip's, and was in a few 
years found occupying prominent positions in both church and 
city life. He seems to have been the "fittest" of his family 
by reason of having inherited practical sagacity from his 
father, while the others, lacking this, but endowed too freely 
with "the French pride of family, " died out in a generation or 
two or left the province. All else was secondary to economic 
independence, and John Laurens struck for this independence 
by the directest means he saw. He learned the trade of saddler 
and followed it with such industry as to make himself a much- 
respected citizen. Like many another distinguished Amer- 
ican family, his was given at least a new start by the native 
vigor which did not balk at plain hard work. If the contrary 
were not so commonly taken for granted, it would hardly be 
worth while to call attention to the fact that the progenitors 
of aristocratic American families (if such a phrase may be 
used) were often in the colonial days of rice, indigo, rum, fur 
and slave trading, men of humble occupations, as may be ob- 
served in the moneyed aristocracy of today, rising by dint of 
their own ability out of the railroad, the mine, the oil-well or 
the factory. The principle is always the same, the application 
differing according to circumstances. E.g., the ancestor of a 
South Carolina family justly distinguished by ability and 
public service describes himself in an indenture of 1700 as 
"William Elliott of Berkley County in the said Province, 
bricklayer." ^ "Thomas Elliott carpenter and William 
Elliott bricklayer" (ancestors of the two branches of the 
family named), under date of January 23, 1689-90, are 
named as the executors of the will of William Cooke gentle - 

' Colonial History of the Heyward Family of South Carolina, p. 13. — 
Nashville, 1907. 



8 Life of Henry Laurens 

man/ "I, Thomas Heyward, of James Island, Berkley- 
County and province of South Carolina hatmaker," is the 
frank and unabashed description of himself, March 7, 1736-7. 
by a member of the third generation of the Heyward family 
in South Carolina.^ And so, "James Stanyame, tanner."^ 
The fact that these men frequently held positions in the 
legislature or other places of trust illustrates their own sterling 
qualities and the open character of Carolina society at that 
period. The same was true all over the colonies. 

The evidence is overwhelming that Virginia society was founded on the 
mercantile population of England particularly. The founders of the more 
important famthes were nearly aU tradesmen. When WiUiam Hatton, of 
Yorke County, complained in 1662 that the county court was composed of 
"coopers, hog-trough makers, pedlars, cobblers, taylors and weavers, and 
not fitten to sit where they did sit," he uttered a partial truth. . . . 
Nevertheless, too much weight must not be laid on this either; for the 
pedigrees of England show that the proudest nobles were often descended 
from tradesmen, and it was the usual course of the younger sons of the 
English gentry to make their residence in the towns and enter the trades for 
a livelihood. * 

John Laurens's and his son Henry's rise exhibit finely how 
the best and strongest were coming to the top by a process of 
natural selection in a new country whose resources and oppor- 
tunities waited to be exploited by men who had the native 
force to grasp them, where the artificial props and bars of social 
convention, tending to keep things as they were without regard 
to the merits of the individual, had not become established. 
It was the free competition of all, out of which the aristocracy 
of talent was to rise, the fore-runner of the aristocracy merely 
of birth and inherited wealth. John Laurens did not dismiss 
his family pride; he only subordinated it to his family interest. 
He was, from the glimpses we catch of him, very much the 
same sort of man as his more distinguished son, his persistence, 

' South Carolina Historical Magazine, xi., 65. 
' Colonial History of the Heyward Family of South Carolina, 17-18. 
i lb., lo-ii. 

* Review of Brace's " Institutional History of Virgina in the Seventeenth 
Century," in American Historical Review, xvi., 142. 



Ancestry and Early Life 9 

sagacity, austerity and stubbornness differing only in the 
circumstances in which they were exercised. He prospered at 
whatever he touched; dealt extensively in real estate, as the 
abundant sprinkling of his name over the records of the mesne 
conveyances testifies; sold his saddlery and chaises right 
briskly, and was a prosperous, much-respected man, no longer 
merely a saddler, but an extensive merchant.^ He was only 
true to his stock. Says Lawson, writing of South Carolina 
about this time : " Since the first Planters abundance of French 
and others have gone over and rais'd themselves to consider- 
able Fortunes. They are very neat and exact in Packing and 
Shipping their Commodities; which Method has got them so 
great a Character abroad that they generally come to a good 
Market with their Commodities, when often times the Product 
of other Plantations are forced to be sold at lower Prices." ^ 

The Laurenses were in general a very determined, self- 
willed race. On account of some misunderstanding with her 
father, one of the daughters, Mrs. Mary Gittens, left his house. 
The dispute, sad to relate, waxed in their stubborn hearts so 
high that the daughter who had willfully left the parental roof 
was with equal willfulness forbidden to return. What the 
matter was we do not know. It could not have been that 
common cause of parental displeasure, marrying against his 
will ; for Henry reminds his sister, in relating to her that her 
father had left each daughter fifty pounds currency, that he had 
given to each on her marriage her full share of his estate. Mr. 
Nathaniel Gittens was a sadly unsuccessful creature and appar- 
ently of a lower standing than befitted a Laurens, whom old 
John does not appear to have cared to hand on to posterity 
as one of his connections, leaving it to the parish register and 
newspapers. Whatever tempests might arise would be aggra- 
vated by the successful old man's disgust at his unfortunate 

' The fact that John Laurens began as a workman at the bench and 
later developed into a saddlery merchant seems to be established by Henry 
Laurens's statement: "Some of them (John's brothers) retained the French 
pride of family and were content to die poor. My father was of different 
sentiments; he learned a trade." See letter of February 25, 1774, below. 

» Quoted in McCrady, i., 343. 



10 Life of Henry Laurens 

son-in-law, who was even brought to advertise that plain 
"Mary Gittens" will teach children "Embroidery, plain Nee- 
dle Work or Reading ... at the Sign of the Griffen, the Corner 
of Elliott street, fronting Church" ; and that dry goods, rum, 
and cordials might be had at the same place. Poor Nathaniel, 
selling his dry goods and wet goods with not too much success ; 
losing the baby boy, named John after the stubborn, prosper- 
ous old grandfather at that, and finally making an assignment 
"of all his estate real and personal" for the benefit of his 
creditors. The world remains very much the same and steam 
engines and trolley cars count for very little.^ The quarrel 
might easily have arisen out of the heart-burnings of the failure 
of 1744; for Henry, who in that year left Charleston for three 
years, says that he was without accurate knowledge as to the 
nature of the dispute. Plainly no great or essential matter. 
Henry, very reverent towards his recently buried parent, 
writes his sister that he is sure it must all have been her fault." 
The best the father would do was to forgive her before he died, 
which does not appear to have done much good. The value 
of the incident is that it shows quite plainly what sort of 
material went into the making of that part of Henry Laurens 
which was due to heredity. 

The Gittenses appear to have gone to the West Indies be- 
tween 1744 and 1747, seeking a new start in a new place, no 
doubt shortly after the failure of 1744. Passing to and fro 
between the Indies and Charleston was common then. Henry 
very kindly sent gifts of money to his sister through a corre- 
spondent in Antigua and invited her to come and live in 
Charleston; but it does not appear that he even ascertained 
her exact location after he heard about 1747 of her being at 
San ta Cruz . I think of her in poverty : ' ' the dismal streights ' ' 
and "the hardships yourself and children have been exposed 

^ South Carolina Gazette, May 21-8, 1741, and July 23, 1744. The Parish 
Register — Salley, 246 — simply says, "1735-August: Then was buried 
John Gittens (Child)." Nathaniel and Mary were married September 
1733-—Ib., 164. 

' Laurens to Mrs. Mary Gittens, Sept. 18, 1747; Laurens to Stevens and 
Parker, Antigua, Oct. 20, 1747. 



Ancestry and Early Life ii 

to since you left your native clime," moving painfully from 
place to place in the West Indies, not concerning herself to ask 
or accept any favors, as proud and stubborn as any of her stock. 

John Laurens's first wife, Hester or Esther, was buried 
April 3, 1742 (O.S.). Exactly three months later he married 
Elizabeth Wicking, ^ an event which those particularly averse 
to step-mothers and quick second marriages may connect in 
their imagination with the Gittens incident, stringing it 
thereto by Henry's statement after his own wife's death that 
he declined to jeopardize the affection subsisting between 
himself and his children by taking a second wife. In so 
quickly healing his broken heart John Laurens followed the 
custom of his times, which attended to such matters with an 
astonishing promptness. Elisabeth Wicking was an English- 
woman. John Laurens left her £1000 currency (one-seventh 
the value of sterling), the household goods which she might 
choose, and two slaves. Henry addresses her in terms of 
respect and affection. She returned to England about a year 
and a half after her husband's death, passing eastward upon 
the sea as Henry was returning westward from a disappointing 
journey to the old country. 

John Laurens so prospered as to become much the largest 
merchant in saddlery goods in the province and always 
imported his stock direct from England. In 1733 he was 
elected a warden of St. Philip's; by 1736 we find that he had 
taken such a position in the commercial world as to be elected 
one of the two fire masters of the "Friendly Society," the 
first insurance company in the United States, which antedated 
by fourteen years the next oldest, of which Benjamin Frank- 
lin was a director. In 1738 he was a person of such means 
as to go bond jointly with Anthony Bonneau in the sum of two 
thousand pounds sterling for the said Anthony to marry 
Mary Hewit.^ In 1742 he was elected one of the city fire 
masters. 2 The fact of his occupying official positions in the 

' St. Philip's Register — not the best authority on spelling — has it Wick- 
ens. This Register also spells the first wife's name Hester. 
^ Emmett Collection, New York Public Library. 
3 South Carolina Gazette, April 24 — May i, 1742. 



12 Life of Henry Laurens 

oldest and most aristocratic parish in the colony and in a 
company whose officers were from among the most prominent 
men in business and social circles is indicative of the respect in 
which he was held. Three or four years before his death he 
retired from business and turned his establishment over to 
Peter Laurens, his kinsman, and Benjamin Addison.^ When 
he died, May 30, 1747 (O.S.),"^ he left an estate consisting of 
valuable lands, a large number of notes and accounts, and a 
stock so large that it had to be sold in lots to dealers up and 
down the coast as far as New York, "as there is no person here 
in that trade carries it on'with the vigour he did in his lifetime." 
Among other assets were the books of the firm of Laurens & 
Addison, saddlers, who had taken over the business without 
being able to buy it. 

Henry, the eldest son, was made executor and residuary 
legatee of his father's estate. As the daughters had each 
received their portions upon marriage, they were now given 
only fifty pounds currency apiece; James was given two thou- 
sand pounds currency and valuable lands. ^ 



' South Carolina Gazette, July 12-19, 1742; Laurens's letters. 

2 In a letter to James Crokatt, June 3, 1747, Laurens says that he arrived 
that day and that his father died four days before. In a letter the 3d of 
the following August he says three days before. As the Parish Register 
records the burial as of May 3 1 , the statement which fixes the death as of 
May 30 is to be preferred, not to mention the fact that the four days state- 
ment was made immediately upon his arrival and the three days statement 
two months later. 

3 Though most of the information in the following letter of Henry Laurens 
from London, Feb. 25, 1774, to a family of Laurences in Poictiers seeking to 
establish a relationship has already been used in the text, it is worth giving 
here. It represents aUthat he knew of his ancestry. He did not know, e.g. , 
that Elizabeth Manigatdt was his great-grandmother, and erroneously 
gives her name as Ann : 

"When I was at La Rochelle, in December, 1772, being informed that 
there was none of my name in that city, nor any register of family arms, I 
despaired of tracing my ancestry and forebore inquiries into a subject which 
appeared to be exceeding abstruse. The receipt of your kind letter there- 
fore surprised as well as pleased me the more. The principal anecdotes of 
my family which are known by me of my family predecessors are these 
which follow: /' 



Ancestry and Early Life 13 

Having viewed these interesting antecedents, we may come 
directly to our man. Henry Laurens, the subject of this 
biography, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, March 6, 
1724, the third child and first son among the six children of 

" My grandfather Andrew Laurens in the last century fled, among other 
Protestants, from France. He resided some time in England and afterward 
in Ireland. From thence he removed to the city of New York in America, 
where my father was bom. In 171 5 he embarked with his family at New 
York and went to Charles Town, South Carolina, which was at that time of 
day almost a wilderness. My grandfather died soon after he arrived in 
South Carolina; but he had saved so much money as enabled him to set 
up four sons and one daughter with such portions as put them above low 
dependence. Some of them retained the French pride of family and were 
content to die poor. My father was of different sentiments; he learned a 
trade, and by his great industry acquired an estate with a good character 
and reestablished the name of his family. He gave his children the best 
education which that country afforded, and my brother James and myself, 
who are all that remain, are not in mean circumstances. We each inherit 
valuable land, the purchase of our father. 

"I have heard that one of our ancestors had been commander of a ship 
of war of 64 guns and died upon his command in the West Indies; that one 
of them married an Ann' Manigaul(t). One of them, who was probably a 
contemporary brother or cousin of my grandfather, wrote to my father when 
I was a child to send me to Holland and he would provide for me ; but my 
father's affection for his children being stronger than his avarice, he would 
not part with me. 

"About the year 1744, during the war between France and England, a 
Capt. Marcon, an elderly, sedate man who had commanded a very rich 
ship, was taken by an English man of war and carried prisoner into Charles 
Town, South Carolina. He informed my father that he knew the family 
name of "Laurens" in La Rochelle or Oleron (I forget which) and that the 
family arms were retained on one of the houses. It seems that some of our 
family were of Oleron and Isle de Ree as well as of La RocheUe. The differ- 
ent spelling of our name at present serves rather as a confirmation of our 
affinity than otherwise; because I have often heard my father say the. 
original spelling was Laurence or Lawrence. The mutation of the third 
letter is easy accounted for in a language which knows not the w. My 
father would have resumed the ancient spelling; but having purchased 
lands in the name of "Laurens," he was apprehensive that such change 
might work loss or inconvenient disputes to his children, which deterred him 
from attempting it. 

' Probably mistake for Elizabeth. 



14 Life of Henry Laurens 

Jean Samuel Laiirens (called John) and his first wife, Esther 
(or Hester) Grasset. ^ We know nothing of his boyhood except 
that he was earnest, precocious, and upright, and the intimate 
friend of another Charleston boy, only eight days his senior, 
destined also to be famous, Christopher Gadsden. These 
youths formed a league of virtue by which they bound them- 
selves "to support and encourage each other in every virtuous 
pursuit, to shun every path of vice and folly, to leave company 
whenever it tended to licentiousness, and by acting in concert, 
to parry the charge of singularity so grating to young per- 
sons."^ He was tender-hearted, thoughtful, and an ardent 
lover of justice. ' ' When I was a boy, ' ' he said upon a notable 
occasion in speaking of the "intolerant damnating tenets" of 
the Athanasian creed which so rigorously consign men to hell, 
"before there were any settled principles of religion in my 
mind, I have heard my father and my mother and many other 
good old people profess that creed with great warmth of 
devotion, I at the same time inwardly exclaiming, ' This can't 
be true ; I cannot believe it.'" 

"My father died in 1747. He had been very careless concerning his 
ancestry, insomuch that I have heard him say, he had destroyed many 
family papers derived from my grandfather, containing title deeds, com- 
missions and other documents. He looked upon them as incapable of 
producing any real benefit, and had no inclination to gratify his vanity by a 
retrospect of any little grandeur which might have existed, before he was 
bom, among his forefathers. This wiU account for the deficiency of my 
knowledge in the history of our past generations. Perhaps by the com- 
parison of our arms our alliance may be further confirmed. Mine as I use 
them will appear upon this address: The crest was a lion, couchant or 
passant, but I have adopted a new crest which will appear upon the cipher 
of the initial letters of my name, also fixed to this letter. " 

' Salley's Register of St. Philip's Parish and Laurens's grave-stone at 
Mepkin both give the date Feb. 24, 1723, Old Style, the latter adding O.S. 
Most writers change the year to 1724 but leave the day of the month Old 
Style. All dates in this book are New Style unless marked O.S., with the 
following exceptions: Direct quotations, where O.S. or N.S. is immaterial, 
the genealogy in the appendix, letters, deeds, Acts of Assembly, etc., where 
cited, in which cases revising the date would lead to confusion in verifying 
references. 

* Ramsay's South Carolina, ii., 457. 



Ancestry and Early Life 15 

John Laurens, his son tells us, "gave his children the best 
education which (Charleston) afforded." Henry's training 
was in direct line with his destiny as a merchant. He learned 
no Latin or Greek, and though a few expressions might indicate 
that as a man he picked up a scrappy smattering of French, 
we find him asking a friend to translate into French his letter 
of 1774 quoted above to the Poictiers Laurences, stating 
that he could not write that language.^ The wide general 
education he possessed seems to have been obtained after 
arriving at manhood through his habit of extensive reading. 
The earliest of his letters, numbers of which for 1747, when 
he was twenty-three years old, are preserved in his letter- 
book, are written with ease and force and are unimpeachable 
in grammar and punctuation. 

In 1744 the young man was sent to London to obtain the 
excellent training as well as the profitable acquaintanceships 
to be found in service with the large merchant James Crokatt.^ 
Crokatt was long a leading merchant in Charleston. In 1736 
he was prominent in the organization of the first fire insurance 
company of the United States, in connection with which we 
have found John Laurens. In 1739 he closed out his Charles- 
ton business and returned to London, where for many years he 
carried on an extensive trade, largely with America. ^ In 1 749 
he was made agent for the colony in England, a position of 
much responsibility, which he held until 1756. Laurens went 
to London in the expectation of being taken into partnership 

» Same statement in Laurens to Henry Laurens, Jr., Aug. 20, 1782, in 
L. I. Hist. Soc. MSS. 

" An article in the Polihcal Magazine (English) for October, 1780, says 
that he was sent to England about 1 740. Against this vague statement from 
an unauthoritative source I place the following: An advertisement in the 
South Carolina Gazette of June 6, 1743, shows that he was in Charleston at 
that time. His description of Capt. Marcon in the Poictiers letter, describ- 
ing the appearance of that officer when brought a prisoner to Charleston 
in 1744, indicates that he saw him himself. Finally, he states in a letter of 
December 18, 1748, to Mrs. Elizabeth Laurens that he was in Crokatt's 
house "almost three years." As he left Crokatt in April, 1747, he must 
have gone to England in 1744. 

3 Smith, 165 and 314. 



\i 



1 6 Life of Henry Laurens 

by Mr. Crokatt after proper training. It is probable that 
Crokatt, impressed with the youth, had held out prospects of 
making him his partner and that the young man had crossed 
the sea for this reason ; for in writing, April 4, 1 749, to Ebenezer 
Holmes, of Boston, after another trip to be presently described, 
Laurens says : ' ' This is a second voyage I have made to London 
in expectation of settling here in a co-partnership with Mr. 
Crokatt, and I am a second time disappointed." Laurens 
remained with Mr. Crokatt until the spring of 1747. The 
expected partnership was offered in January, but circumstances 
not explained caused a miscarriage, and so embarking at 
Portsmouth he sailed from off Cowes, April 8th, in the Neptune 
and landed in Charleston June 3, 1747. 

Instead of the proud and affectionate welcome from a parent 
to whom he was deeply attached, his heart was wrung with 
grief to find that, only four days before, his father had died. 
The young man of twenty-three was immediately plunged into 
the labors and responsibilities of settling his father's estate, 
duties which he performed with the dispatch and firmness of 
a settled man of affairs. At the same time he entered upon his 
own account the business of importer, factor and commission 
merchant and opened correspondence with a number of London 
merchants. His letters during the first years read with almost 
the same concise and decided note that characterizes his expres- 
sions in his maturity. The man is all bustle, energy, go; 
he is living in a present with which he is entirely engaged; 
the kind of young man of parts, all business, knowing the 
game, thoroughly drilled, who would be just as much at home 
and take just as readily the road to success in the New York 
or Chicago of today as in the Charleston of 1747.'^ 

Missing an opening in London was a disappointment, but 
now that his father's death made his presence in South Car- 
olina needful, he applied his motto, ''Optimum quod evenit," 

' An article a queer mixture of truth and error in the Political Magazine 
(English) for October, 1780, page 635, states that "a lucky stroke in the 
way of insurance laid the foundation of his fortune. " I know of nothing 
with which this might be connected except his father's having been one of 
the organizers of the fire insurance company in Charleston in 1 736. 



Ancestry and Early Life 17 

and accepted the prospects of a provincial merchant for at 
least some years, but not for life, he hoped.* His regrets were 
soon dispersed, however; for the next mail brought letters 
dated April 6 and 7 from Mr. Crokatt which had missed him at 
Portsmouth, renewing the invitation of the preceding January 
to enter business in the metropolis as his partner. He now 
made every effort to settle his father's estate and his own affairs 
and get to London within the limit set, April, 1748. The task, 
however, proved impossible, and Crokatt granted an extension 
of several months; but it was several months after this even 
before Laurens reached London, knowing that he went upon a 
chance of disappointment. Sending a thousand milled dollars 
by the man-of-war Glasgow, Sept. 23, 1748, he embarked the 
same day on the Charming Nancy, and arrived at Dover 
"after a most disagreeable and fatiguing passage of nine 
weeks. " Sixteen hours put him in London, where he at once 
called upon Mr. Crokatt. He saw that he was not welcome. 
Crokatt handed him copies of letters he had sent him dated 
July 26, August 26 and September 23, accusing him of 
cruelty and ingratitude and declaring himself free from any 
engagement. Crokatt had been played upon by envy and 
misrepresentation, as the perpetrators confessed to Laurens 
twenty-six years afterwards with the ' deepest contrition."* 
Laurens had no difficulty in clearing himself of his old friend's 
misconceptions ; but though Crokatt appeared much grieved, 
he informed him that he had already given his word to an- 
other man. 3 Laurens could only regret his disappointment and 
assured his friend that he would not think of advising a breach 
of a promise made to another. In view of the uncertainty of 
his prospects on account of the expiration of the time limit, he 
had accepted provisionally an offer of partnership with Mr. 
George Austin, a wealthy and prominent merchant of Charles- 

' Laurens to Wm. Fowler, Jtily lo, 1747. 

^ Letter from Laurens, March 4, 1774. 

3 Laurens's two former friends who were taken in as Crokatt's partners 
will of course occur to one as the perpetrators of these slanders uttered with 
the purpose of depriving Laurens of the partnership, but I have found 
nothing to prove this. 



1 8 Life of Henry Laurens 

ton, later a member of the King's Council in South Carolina. 
This Mr. Crokatt advised him not to reveal at once, as he was 
sure that he would within a few days receive other offers to 
settle in London, "which he thought much more agreeable 
than going back to Carolina. " The younger man proved the 
better one, and replied that if he should break his word to 
Mr. Austin in such a manner, then he would indeed deserve 
the terms recently applied unjustly to him by Crokatt of 
"cruel and ungrateful" ; and he refused to consider any other 
proposals, "let the prospect of advantage be ever so great. " 

Then and there he dropped his early motto, ^'Optimum quod 
evenit"; but all through his life I find him putting very firmly 
into use another, which he professed always to follow, "Audiam 
alteram partem, " a change connected perhaps with this 
experience. The only other occasion on which I have found 
him using the earlier phrase is in 1782, when he retorts upon an 
Englishman on the outcome of the Revolution; and again in 
the same year, no longer in the sense of a blind fate, he says 
that our ruling Providence, our strong tower, convinces us 
"Whatever is is best. " 

The disappointment was bitter, coming as it did a second 
time from the same source and depriving him of the early 
acquisition of wealth and prominence in the capital of the 
empire. Though he soon recovered from such a state of mind, 
he expresses himself at first as having been deceived by Crokatt 
as well as slandered by traducers. 

You remember, madame [he wrote Dec. 16, 1748, to his step-mother], I 
promised this voyage should polish me and make me quite polite; but really 
I believe my time will be so taken up with business that I shaU return just 
the fellow that left you in September last, and considering several little 
tricks and artifices I have lately been acquainted with, if I do but keep my- 
self honest 'tis as much as can be expected. 

The calmer view of after years (1764) expressed to his old 
friend's son was that he never forgot his obligations to Crokatt 
and the pleasure of their association, "notwithstanding any 
untoward circumstances that fell out. " 

Such an experience, involving so much inconvenience and 



Ancestry and Early Life 19 

expense and two toilsome crossings of the Atlantic, had its 
effect in shaping the character of the young man of twenty- 
four. He went to London, lured and intoxicated by the 
grandeur of the English capital; he left it a British subject still 
and long to remain a proudly loyal one ; but there was a new 
feeling in him too, the first evidence of that strong love for the 
spot of earth that bore and nourished him which was in time 
to make him no longer an Englishman but an American. " I 
shall once more ship myself to Carolina, " he wrote his brother 
James, "where, please God I arrive safe, I shall pitch my tent. " 

In 1 77 1-4 Laurens was again in the metropolis, but now as 
the rich planter and retired Carolina merchant who had been 
shaped by very different influences from those of the eighteenth 
century London he had left in disappointment almost twenty- 
five years before. His Huguenot standards and the freer in- 
stitutions of the country that had made him its own had 
brought him to look with horror on the morals and politics of 
the great city he had once yearned for, and again the native 
American within him spoke, and more strongly, when he 
wrote that he considered his disappointment of 1748 as one 
of the most fortunate events of his life. He was right ; but 
how narrowly his destiny turned on Crokatt's letters, of April, 
1747, reaching Portsmouth a few hours late. 

Thus we have a very sturdy, honorable, accomplished and 
self-reliant young man; a man of good French Huguenot 
blood, inheriting a tough, enduring fiber of character, meant 
for work much more than play; a man with a good start in 
life and on the up-grade; certainly promising material for 
making a good American. 



CHAPTER II 

SOCIETY AND INDUSTRY IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE MIDDLE 
OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

THE South Carolina to which young Laurens in 1748 
determined to ship himself back, there to pitch his 
tent, was become by virtue of his disappointment more than 
ever before his own country. The distaste, so common in 
youth, for the small, retired place in contrast with the more 
splendid life of the city was yielding to an older and stronger 
instinct. Without delay the young Carolina merchant, on a 
trip including London, Liverpool, Cirencester, Bath, Bristol, 
etc., set about engaging business for the new firm of Austin & 
Laurens. Having completed these duties of the commercial 
traveler, he, embarked for South Carolina, and on April 20, 
1749, we find him on the Fortrose at Deal, waiting for a wind 
to carry him to what he now felt to be his home. 

The province had been for well-nigh two decades moving 
forward into the heyday of its prosperity. The colonists had 
learned to exploit the natural resources of the soil upon which 
they dwelt and population and wealth were rapidly increasing. 
Governor Glen reported that there were in 1748 25,000 whites 
and 39,000 negroes.^ An example, it was, of the situation to 
become so common as the Europeans spread over the earth 
appropriating it to their own uses — a small minority of whites 
encamped upon a new country and either expelling the other 
races or bending them to the accomplishment of its own designs. 
The proportions of the whites as given for 17 10 are at least 
suggestive for a somewhat later date. About 71% were 

' Carroll, ii., 218. 

20 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 21 

planters; 123^% traders, and 16% artisans. The great 
majority were Episcopalians or Presbyterians, almost nine- 
tenths of the whole being equally divided between these ; while 
the Baptists constituted about a tenth, and the Quakers a 
fortieth.* 

The years from 1728 to 1763 in South Carolina, says Mc- 
Crady, were a period of unprecedented prosperity; "the good 
old time" it always remained to those who remembered it. 
The navigation laws did not seriously interfere with the lines 
of trade pursued by the Carolina merchant, and the Carolina 
planter was turning the rich soil of the swamps and the uplands 
respectively into rice and indigo, in return for which there came 
from across the sea the products and manufactures of Europe 
and the Indies . ' ' Frugal planters , ' ' says McCrady in speaking 
of the period, "doubled their capital every three or four years." 
Laurens writes about 1750 that the planters are "full of 
money" and anxious to extend their cultivation. Good over- 
seers were hard to keep. Says Laurens in 1769, "I am at 
Mepkin plantation, where I have been for some days fixing a 
new overseer (the old one having grown rich and set up for 
himself)." Acre was being added to acre and plantation to 
plantation by every man of enterprise who could command 
credit, in the expectation of paying for both land and slaves 
from the profits of the first few years. Laurens himself, e.g., 
came to possess large tracts at Mepkin, Mt. Tacitus, Ninety - 
Six, Broughton Island on the Altamaha, New Hope on the 
opposite side of the river, Wright's Savannah, and Turtle 
River, which yielded crops of rice and indigo for market, to- 
gether with corn, peas, potatoes, meat, etc., needed for the 
maintenance of their teeming human and animal life. If war 
had not come when his plantations were reaching their full 
development, he would have reaped annually from his Georgia 
estates alone, he tells us, a clear profit of 10,000 guineas, equal 
in value to something like $75,000 to-day. 

The wealth of the planter was reflected in the wealth of the 
merchant, which was based upon the needs of the expanding 

'■ Carroll, ii., 260. 



22 Life of Henry Laurens 

cultivation. The planter constantly called for more slaves to 
clear the forest, drain the swamp, ditch and dam and irrigate 
the rice plantation, make the indigo, and perform the varied 
labors of an extensive agriculture. The merchants coined 
fortunes by supplying slaves, exporting staple products, and 
importing innumerable manufactured and other foreign articles. 
The outgoing commerce of the port of Charleston, Governor 
Glen reported in 1749, occupied for the three years 1746, 1747, 
and 1748 respectively 255, 235, and 192 vessels. The forty- 
nine separate articles of the colony's own production enumer- 
ated as exported in the year ending November, 1748, equaled 
in value £161,365 sterling. Rice, £88,393 sterling, deer skins, 
£36,000, and indigo, £16,765 made up almost 87^% of the 
whole amount. Under the stimulus of the British bounty of 
6d. a pound on indigo granted this year, the production 
mounted rapidly and in 1754 reached 216,924 pounds, worth 
about £40,000 sterling. 1748 was not a good year, its ton- 
nage being only 85% of that of 1746; so that we may fairly 
infer that in favorable years about the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century the value of the province's exports must have 
approximated £200,000 sterling. The freights alone on ex- 
ports, practically all paid to Englishmen, equaled in 1746 the 
sum of £92,708 sterling. ^ During the next twenty years com- 
merce doubled. In 1769 the port of Charleston exported 
merchandise valued at £404,050 sterling.^ In 1770-3 the rice 
crop averaged 127,476 barrels of about 600 pounds each, and 
at the outbreak of the Revolution the export amounted to 
142,000 barrels. In 1773 the indigo crop equaled 789,150 
pounds weight and in 1775, 1,150,662.' 

' Carroll, ii., 225-6, 234. General McCrady, ii., 264, mistakes the gross 
amount of freights paid for the value of the cargoes, as the manner of 
statement in Carroll might easily mislead one into doing. As the rates to 
Europe were twice as high as those to the Northern colonies and 59% above 
those to the West Indies, General McCrady's statement of the propor- 
tionate trade to these various quarters is, of course, erroneous in these 
proportions. 

' Lt. Gov. Bull in Public Records of South Carolina, MS., xxxii., 126-7, 
129. 

3 McCrady, ii., 396. 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 23 

The major portion of the trade of the province went to the 
mother country. As will appear below, more than 60% of the 
total amount went to Europe, and Governor Glen states (i 748) , 
without serious inaccuracy, that, with the exception of rice 
sent to Portugal, the trade with Europe went entirely to 
England. Added to the fact that England would, irrespective 
of any legal regulations have obtained a large portion of the 
commerce, the three leading exports of the province — rice, deer 
skins, and indigo — were all among the "enumerated articles" 
which could lawfully be exported only to Great Britain or 
another colony. Since 1729 South Carolina, and since 1735 
Georgia, rice could be sent to any European port south of Cape 
Finisterre ; but the value of this concession was diminished by 
the fact that the countries of northern Europe continued the 
principal consumers.* In 1746, 64^% of the exports from 
Charleston went to Europe, 24^% to the West Indies, and 
io3^% to the northern colonies; in 1747, 67^% to Europe, 
25% to the West Indies, and 7% to the northern colonies; 
in 1748, 60% to Europe, 30% to the West Indies, and 83^% 
to the northern colonies. Three-fifths of the exports of 1769 
went to the British Isles. ^ 

The exports from Charleston for 1748 included £228 sterling 
worth of raw silk, 296,000 oranges, £25 sterling worth of 
cotton, almost 5,000 barrels of pork and beef, several thousand 
bushels of potatoes and peas, besides considerable quantities 
of lumber. It is evident that enterprising pioneers were 
making all sorts of experiments to discover the capacities of 
their new home. Some of the ventures succeeded ; others did 
not and are forgotten. 

The vast quantity of deer skins suggests the great distance 
to which the Indian trade extended. Traders beyond the 
Blue Ridge collected a few beaver and otter and great quan- 
tities of deer pelts from Indians who ranged still farther to the 



'3 George ii., c. 28, §§i and 2; Carroll, ii., 266. In 1764 South Car- 
olina and Georgia were allowed, tinder certain restrictions, to send rice to 
the French and Spanish colonies to the south. — Lecky, iv., 55, says 1763. 

' Carroll ii., 225-6; Bull as above. 



24 Life of Henry Laurens 

west, and sent them by tens of thousands to Charleston. In 
1 73 1, 225,000 of the last named were exported from South 
Carolina. The value of those exported in 1747 was £400,000 
currency, which would amount to about 280,000 skins if they 
were of the same value as in 1755, $2.50 a piece in modern 
money, and a great many more if, as it is reasonable to suppose, 
they were cheaper at the earlier date.^ In 1748, 720 hogs- 
heads were exported, valued at £36,000 sterling, or £252,000 
currency. What teeming wild life there was where now no 
deer is to be seen except in the woodlands surrounding the 
swamps of the low country or in the game preserves of the 
Appalachians. 

The profits of planting and trading were so great that the 
province, notwithstanding that it was engaged so extensively 
in foreign commerce, invested but little of its capital in building 
the ships which it used. Ramsay states that about 1740 
this industry began seriously to engage the attention of the 
South Carolinians, that five shipyards were erected, and that 
between 1740 and 1773 twenty-four square-rigged vessels, 
besides sloops ajid schooners, were built. In 1773 there were, 
however, but twelve Carolina-built vessels in use between 
Charleston and Europe, about the same number as sixty- 
five years before.^ 

From scattered notes which are too useful to throw away, 
I compile the following scrappy table of prices. The sources 
are Carroll, ii., 234-7, stc, the Gazettes, and Laurens's letters. 
The dates and the prices may not always exactly agree, as 
sometimes a letter quotes the price at which the article has 
been selling. Prices are in currency, equal to one-seventh of 
sterling : 

» Logan, i., 382-5. » McCrady, ii., 396, 543. 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 



25 





1740-1 


June I 
1747 


1748 


Oct 
1749 


July 
I7SS 


I7S8 


July 24 
1762 


1762 


Nov. 27 
1762 


June 25 
1763 


Aug. 5 
1763 


Rice 
Cwt. 


About 
SO s. 


40 s. 


45 s. 


6s s. 




52 s. 
6d. 


25 s. 
"Nom- 
inal" 


Old 
rice 30s 
32s. 6d. 
Oct. 23 


40 s. 




SOS. 
"Poor 
price" 


Indigo 
lb. 




17 s. 
6 d. 


17 s. 
6 d. 




$1 
(£1. 
12 s. 
6d.) 








4 s.- 
40 s. 






Deer 

skins 
lb. 




16 s. 
6d. 


About 
IS S.I 












13s. gd.- 
15 s. 






Ind. 
corn 
bushel 




12 s. 
6d. 


10 s. 












12 s. 
6d. 






Pitch 
fb?''- 






4S s. 








35 s. 










Tar 
330 lb. 
bbl. 






(Green 
SO s.) 
















Turpen- 
tine 
100 lb. 






(70 s. 
a bbl.) 






10 s. 






^ ISS. 
(11 S.3 d. 
12 s. lit- 
tle later 




Butter 
lb. 






3 s. or 
over' 












3 s. 
9d. 






Sugar 
100 lb. 
























Salt 
bu. 
























Flour 
Cwt. 


















£4. Ss.- 
£4. 10 s. 






Pine 
plank 


So far as I can judge, lumber was measured by the same 
unit as to-day. The reader can judge as well as I whether 
these figures are for 100 or 1000 feet. 




£s 




Oak 

plank 




















(£20?) 




Pine 
scant- 
ling 






£3 10 s. 














£20 




Oak 

scantling 




















£20 




Shingles 
1000 






£4 
















Freight 
to Lon- 
don. Ton 




£6, IDS. 

(1746) 


£6 








(armed 
ship 
£8) 


£S 
Sep. II 








Freight 
to Hol- 
land. Ton 












£8 











' Carroll states deer skins by hogsheads, which seem to have weighed about 450 lbs., and 
butter by casks, which seem to have weighed about so lbs. 



26 



Life of Henry Laurens 





Nov. S 
1763 


Dec. IS 
1763 


1764 


176s 


1766 


Ap. 29 
1767 


Dec. 14 
1768 


Sometime 
1770-3 


June 12 
I77S 


Rice 
Cwt. 


30 s. 








SO s. 
Feb. 27 


50 s. 

{658. ^ 

Oct. 27) 


623^8. 


80 s. 


40 s. 


Indigo 






Oct. 29. Fin- 
est copper & 

purple 27- 
273^ s. Fine 

Flora 35 s. 


18 s. 
6d.- 
20 s. 
Feb. 








32j^-35 s. 
1773 


30-35 8. 

Best. 


Deer 
skins 
lb. 


















13 s. 


Ind. 
corn 
bushel 






I0S.-I2S. 6d. 
Feb 23. 




20-25 E. 
Ap.- 
Sep. 


16 s. 
3d. 








Pitch 
330 lb. 
bbl. 






SSs. Ap. 17. 
42/6-60 ac- 
cording to 
quality. 70- 
75 June-Sept. 


67S 

Ap. 8 




50 s. 








Tar 
330 lb. 
bbl. 






so s. Jan. 27 
60 s. May 


Green 

70 s. 

Jan. 22 




45 s. 
(Green 
60 s.) 








Turpen- 
tine 
100 lib. 






30 s. 

Very 
high 


40 s. 
Ap. 25 
"Enor- 
mous" 


IS s.- 
I7jis. 








Butter 
lb. 




















Sugar 
100 lb. 






£12, 10 d. 
Dec. 10. 




£13 
Ap.29 
Infer 'r. 










Salt 
bu. 




(7 s. 6 d. 
Feb. 28) 
12 s. 6 d. 














Flour 
Cwt. 












£6 








Pine 
plank 




5^ inch 
40 s. 






£5 

Ap. 5 










Oak 
plank 




i}^ inch 
SO s. 
















Pine 
scant- 
ling 




ij/^ inch 
£3 
















Oak 

scantling 




2-2K-3 
inch £5' 
















Shingles 
1000 






£6 Feb. 17 














Freight 
to Lon- 
don. Ton 




















Freight 
to Hol- 
land. Ton 










40 S.2 

Feb. 27 











' In this case nothing is specified as to the kind of wood. 

' Low rate due to overcrowding of harbor on account of Stamp Act. 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 2^ 

The society in which young Laurens took up his life work 
in 1749, though barely eighty years old, had already taken on a 
decidedly aristocratic character. Down to about 1 735 or 1 740 
immense quantities of land had been acquired in vast tracts 
by speculators in a way very harmful to the interests of the 
public, and often by unblushing fraud and illegal occupancy. 
The system of immense estates as the basis of a semi-feudal 
slave-holding society was thus firmly entrenched at an early 
date. By 1742, i ,453,875 acres had been granted away by the 
proprietary and 1,885,254 acres by the royal government, an 
area of 5217 square miles, or more than a sixth of the present 
South Carolina, which was, of course, an immensely larger 
proportion of the area then available for settlers. In conse- 
quence new-comers were being driven away or charged high 
prices by the land monopolists. ^ Quit rents were fraudulently 
avoided and even after the day of the frauds, the collections 
were so irregular that many owners enjoyed as snug an exemp- 
tion as any tax dodger of to-day. Sometimes, after having 
been unpaid for years, they caused serious inconvenience when 
called for in lump by a Receiver General who, like the incum- 
bent in 1765, was "very strict."* 

The introduction of the cultivation of rice in the seventeenth 
century and of indigo in the first half of the eighteenth fixed 
the plantation system as the prevailing form of industry ; the 
very trying summer climate, supplemented by the unhealthy 
nature of the tasks, made African slavery inevitable. The 
colonists entertained no religious or political ideals unfavorable 
to an aristocratic system, whether based on a tenant peasantry 
or on slaves, but on the contrary were strongly inclined in that 
direction, both by their intimate association with the older 
West Indian plantation of Barbadoes and by their admiration 
for the society of England, which they frequently visited. 
Both Dra5rton and Ramsay testify that the South Carolina of 
1738 to 1763 was excessive in its admiration and imitation 
to everything British. Even after the Revolution we find 

' Smith, 36, 51, 66. 

» Laurens to Handlin, about Jiily i , 1 765, in Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania collections. 



28 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens sending his old shoes to England by which to have new 
ones made. 

It was an elegant and delightful society that early grew up 
among the more fortunate under these conditions. Through 
the charming letters of Mrs. Eliza Lucas Pinckney, woven so 
skillfully into a book by her descendant, Mrs. Ravenel, we 
may almost look upon the men and women of the old planta- 
tion section of eighteenth century South Carolina living and 
moving before us. Miss Eliza Lucas was the daughter of 
the Governor of Antigua, who had put this young lady at the 
age of sixteen in charge of three plantations in South Carolina. 
With one so occupied, the gaiety of dancings, visitings, and 
dinings would take their proper secondary place. The seats 
of the oldest and richest families lay along both sides of the 
Cooper and Ashley rivers, whose banks to this day, though 
wrecked of these stately historic homes, still master the imagin- 
ation with a subtle enchantment which few other places in 
America afford. Each place had its name, which has clung 
to it for nearly two hundred years. The finest of the country 
homes, like Crowfield, the seat of the Middletons, were sur- 
rounded by parks and gardens sometimes scores of acres in 
extent and were marked by a dignity and propriety of design 
which makes those few which still stand a calm dehght in 
contrast with the overwrought, nervous, self-conscious archi- 
tecture of which the nineteenth century produced so much. 

Every tradition combined with the comparative isolation 
of the Hfe to make hospitality the glory of these homes. There 
were the visits of friend to friend and frequent entertainments 
which drew their guests from a circuit of many miles. Such 
was the world of pomp and merriment which Eliza Lucas 
passed through that she "was forced to consult Mr. Locke 
over and over, to see wherein personal identity consisted and 
if I was the very same selfe;" and it is plain why Laurens's 
step-mother in 1748 thought well to urge that, besides attend- 
ing to business on his trip to England, he must come back 
" poHshed and quite poHte. " The young man was taking his 
place in this brilliant society and at one of these country 
seats on Cooper River was himself soon to meet with an ex- 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 29 

perience calculated to put both head and heart into a decided 
whirl; for at a wedding at Mrs. Afifra Coming's Cooper River 
plantation he met and loved at first sight the beautiful girl 
who was to be his wife. With all its cordial hospitality, this 
old society enforced a dignity and formality very foreign to 
the present and demanded a regard for family authority and 
interest characteristic of its aristocratic ideals, but almost 
vanished before the democracy and individualism of to-day. 
The reverent restraint of the sexes toward each other is 
illustrated by the following reproof which Laurens as himself 
the father of a marriageable daughter wrote to a middle-aged 
fortune-hunting Frenchman who sought to apologize for his 
disregard of propriety by begging him to remember his own 
feelings when in a similar situation : 



When I paid my addresses to the lady my daughter's mother, I was in the 
vigour of youth and there was Kttle disparity between our ages. That lady 
was also under guardianship, and altho' my life and conversation, my con- 
nections and prospects were intimately known to her guardians, to her 
father and her brothers, I scorned to attempt an attachment of her affec- 
tions, 'till I had obtained the consent and approbation of the other parties 
so nearly interested. I should have deemed a contrary conduct a species 
of dishonourable fraud. ' 



The absorbent powers of our ancestors remain a standing 
marvel. The idea that their drinking was limited to the social 
usages of polished gentlemen is, sad to say, to a great extent one 
of the roseate fictions with which we idealize the past. Dr. 
Ramsay bitterly laments the heavy drinking, whose extent and 
effects, he says, can be known only to a physician, which in- 
capacitated or slew many a promising man of the Carolina of 
his day. Though falling short of the gross drunkenness com- 
mon in even the highest circles of eighteenth-century England, 
the amounts of liquor which were sent to plantations as medi- 
cine and beverage are surprising enough . ^ Laurens was a very 
temperate man for his time ; but his stipend of wine seems to 

« Laurens to De Verne, Nov. 13, 1782. 
" Laurens's letters to overseers, etc. 



30 Life of Henry Laurens 

have been a bottle of Madeira a day, and he became a total 
abstainer only under compulsion of the gout.^ 

After the Methuen treaty of 1703 admitting Portuguese 
wine at one-third less than French, French claret ceased to be 
the fashionable drink in England and Britons loyally befuddled 
themselves with the vintages of their ally. South Carolina of 
course followed suit, as we see from Governor Glen's remark in 
1748 that "the wine chiefly drank here is Madeira, imported 
directly from the place of growth. " In 1763 it was much the 
same, except that rum also appears to have become popular. 
A writer in that year tells us "Madeira wine and punch are the 
common drinks of the inhabitants; yet few gentlemen are 
without claret, port, Lisbon, and other wines, of the French, 
Spanish, or Portugal vintages. The ladies, I mention it to 
their credit, are extremely temperate and generally drink 
water. "^ In a letter of this same year Laurens says that he 
does not suppose over five hundred gallons of French brandy 
are consumed in South Carolina in a year, but that rum is 
imported by almost every retail store in town and is the general 
drink. 3 The cheapness of the latter made it popular with the 
common people. Even the slaves got it, at times to such an 
extent as to cause considerable drunkenness.'' The illicit 
peddling of liquor by shrewd slaves was a frequent annoyance, 
especially to overseers. 

The "sporting blood" of eighteenth-century England, with- 
out, however, the degree of moral looseness which disfigured 
contemporary English society, was abundant in the little 
England of South Carolina. Tradition has it that the quarter 
in the northeastern portion of Charleston called Ansonboro 
was won from a prominent South Carolina official citizen at a 
single sitting by Lord George Anson, who was stationed at 
that port between 1724 and 1735, or at least that it was bought 

'Letters of Jan. 8, 1778. ' Carroll, ii., 231 and 482. 

3 The Germans of the back country at this time distilled "a palatable 
brandy from peaches, which they have in great plenty; likewise from po- 
tatoes, Indian com, and rye. " — CarroU, ii., 481. 

4 Letters from Laurens, 1776, etc. The derangement of trade in 1776, 
he says, had caused rum to go to "20/ a quart ; I wish it was £5. " 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 31 

with his winnings at the card table. "• This distinguished 
sailor, who later occupied the highest command in the British 
navy as commander of the fleet and established himself in 
literature as the author of one of the most famous accounts 
of ^ voyage around the world, thus fixed his name in new 
world geography.^ 

Horse racing flourished. In 1735 the York course was laid 
out six miles from Charleston. That being too far away, the 
New Market course was opened in 1760.2 This brought the 
sport within a mile of Charleston and led to much more general 
patronage. Laurens writes, Feb. 7, 1769, that a captain of 
whom he is speaking will get his ship loaded if he can keep his 
people from "the horse races, a diversion which is carried on 
rather too near our town." February was the great month 
for balls and races. These diversions were so absorbing as 
to be determining factors in the meetings of public bodies, 
even of the Legislature itself. The following, with a keen play 
on "dancing " as a thrust at some of the dilatory tactics of the 
Assembly of which he did not approve, is from a letter of 
Laurens to John Moultrie in Florida : 

Pray what is your Assembly about — Dancing? — Ours break up next week 
for that and another amusement which you know is due to us in February. 

Another diversion was the country sport of deer hunting. 
An inexpensive club house was erected by the gentlemen of a 
neighborhood, where, at the hunts, which occurred once or 
twice a month during season, the members in turn furnished 
dinner for the company. "The club always had visitors," 
says Prof. Porcher in writing of the St. John's Hunting Club, 
"great men from a distance, who would go there on that day 
to enjoy social intercourse with the people of that district." 
Various political or local government committees would use 
the meetings for their purpose, agreeably mingling business and 
pleasure. These delightful occasions continued to be a com- 

' Johnson's Traditions, 38; McCrady, ii., 534. 
* Anson County, N. C, is also named for him. 
3 McCrady, ii., 520-1. 



32 Life of Henry Laurens 

mon feature of low-country life far into the nineteenth century. * 
Life in the little city of Charleston was even better supplied 
with diversions than in the country. The terrible "country 
fever" made it impossible for the white inhabitants to live on 
the plantations during the summer. Some formed summer 
colonies on pine-covered spots elevated somewhat above the 
surrounding country, as Cordesville, Pinopolis, or Walter- 
boro, some repaired to the sea islands and many went to 
Charleston, a custom which to some extent still exists and is 
facilitated by the fast "planters' train, " which leaves the city 
at sunrise and returns at dusk, carrying planters to and from 
their places, many miles away. Even those who lived in 
healthful situations, such as the bluff at Mepkin, joined the 
tide of summer residents. About the end of June, writes 
Laurens, the girls "for fashion sake go to town. " Mosquitoes 
that bite through summer clothing, burrowing insects that 
make the skin a torment, and deadly rattlesnakes in every 
glade and forest made travel in the country, and particularly 
walking through the woods, unpleasant and dangerous. 
Laurens always sought to arrange land surveying for the fall 
or winter, "when gentlemen will be more inclined to ride in 
the woods and survey the lands with more certainty and less 
danger."* 

The crowding of the wealthy country gentry into the city 
only increased the abounding vivacity of the social life of a 
place already devising means of recreation and culture for its 
own pleasure. The formal social season was, as it still remains, 
the winter, when many of the summer residents returned to 
share in the dinners, concerts, balls, and dramatic exhibitions. 
Music was early cultivated to a high degree. Formal public 
concerts were advertised as early as 1733; in 1762 was organ- 
ized the St. Cecilia Society, which was originally a musical 
association. ^ The ball which followed came in time to eclipse 
the concert, and the society has now come to be an organization 

' McCrady, ii., 519; Porcher's Saniee Canal, 9. 

' Laurens to E. Ball, May 2, 1765. Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
collections. 

3 McCrady, ii., 526, 528. 



South Carolina in the i8th Century 33 

for drawing the lines of the exclusive social circles of the city. 
A theatre is known to have existed in Charleston in 1736, 
being thus barely behind New York, where one is recorded in 
1732, and about twenty years behind Williamsburg, Va.* 

The active little city contained in 1750 some seven thousand 
people and occupied about a third of its present area.* The 
sections to the north and northwest were dotted with occasional 
houses, and on the west the tide marshes of the Ashley still 
encroached far inland. It is about 1765 when Laurens says 
that Ansonboro is covered with houses. Frowning cannon 
for real use stood at various points around the city, reminding 
the merchant as he passed to and from his business of the 
hazards of war his trade was at any time likely to encounter. 
In 1756 three bastions stood at the corner of East Bay and 
South Battery capable of carrying one hundred guns, which 
were part of a general system of fortifications extending, all 
along the water front. The peace of 1763, signalizing the 
subduing of the old enemies France and Spain, removed the 
danger of war, and accordingly the "cannons were dismounted, 
carriages housed, and the fortifications generally neglected 
until the outbreak of the Revolution. "^ 

From the earliest times of the colony the frequent passage 
of South Carolinians to and from England kept the inhabitants 
in such intimate touch with the life of the old country that 
foreigners were impressed with their manners and bearing as 
the least provincial in America. Whereas, according to Mc- 
Master, in most of the colonies a man who had been abroad 
was pointed out as a curiosity, from 1760 to 1775, says Mc- 
Crady, there were few gentlemen in Charleston who had not 
been to Europe, "* a statement which is well supported by the 
lists of passengers regularly printed in the Gazettes. 

' McCrady, ii., 526. Chas. P. Daly, When was the Drama Introduced in 
America ? p. 3, gives 1733 for New York; Geo. O. Seahamer, History of the 
American Theatre, p. i, says 1732. Robt. A. Law in The Nation, Feb. 27, 
1913, Apr. 23 and Sept. 3, 1914. Plays were given in the court room in 
Charleston in 1735. 

' The population in 1763 was estimated at about 8,000. — Carroll, ii., 484. 

3 Smith, 207. 4 McCrady, ii., 537. 

3 



34 Life of Henry Laurens 

This young South Carolina and this little Charleston of the 
mid-eighteenth century were instinct with life and vibrant with 
the power of a growing community. It was a society in the 
full vigor of youth, vital with the forces of progress which were 
in the ascendant. And it was a society not only of great 
energy, force, and progress, but it possessed in a marked degree 
what such societies usually wait much longer for — culture, 
refinement, and a delicately organized social Hfe. 



CHAPTER III 

POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE MIDDLE OF 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

THE political conditions by which Laurens as a young 
man of twenty-five was surrounded were of a sort to 
stimulate a strong self-reliance and an intimate understanding 
of the principles of self-government. The narrow suffrage of 
England was replaced by a comparatively liberal law. Almost 
every gentleman of means took an interest in politics, and a 
good portion of them an active part. Indeed the politics of 
the colony were decidedly too active to suit the King's repre- 
sentative. Governor Glen arrived in December, 1743, ajid 
in less than two months he was writing home that he found 
"the whole frame of government unhinged, and the Governor 
divested of the power placed in him, which power was par- 
celled out to many hands, principally commissioners, etc.," 
the appointees of the Assembly, and that the government was 
in general very unsystematic.^ 

Notwithstanding that the King's instructions had provided 
for a frame of government as "systematic" as one could wish, 
with the proper working of every part prescribed and its 
privileges and limitations noted, it had come to be something 
quite different from his intentions, and for a very interesting 
reason. The constitution of the province was in a vigorous 
state of growth and was straining to the breaking point the 
regulations under which it was supposed to operate. This 
development was manifested in the steadily increasing power 
of the representatives of the people, the Commons House of 

' McCrady, ii., 254, letter of Feb. 6, 1744. 

35 



36 Life of Henry Laurens 

Assembly, who after overthrowing the proprietary government 
in 1 7 19, entered upon a program of gradually appropriating a 
degree of authority that would in time, if unrestrained, render 
them practically sovereign. 

Political life, though active, was confined to a smaller class 
than now, and intermarriages and family prestige constituted 
in politics a system something like the "interlocking direc- 
torates" in the business world of to-day. Partly from indif- 
ference, partly from the distance over bad roads to the one 
polling place in each parish, and partly from the moderate 
property qualification, the number of voters was much less in 
proportion than now. It is interesting to notice that Laurens 
says in 1786 that there was a representative in the South Caro- 
lina Legislature for every fortieth man, meaning, of course, 
every fortieth voter. That is to say, on the basis of the figures 
of the census of 1790, only one adult white man in five usually 
voted. Christopher Gadsden gives the number of votes cast in 
the election of 1762 in St. Paul'sparish as 94, which, he says, was 
"an uncommon number of electors."^ Evidently practically 
all the adult white males in this small low-country parish were 
qualified voters; for the census of 1790 gives these figures: 
Free white males sixteen years old and upwards, sixty-five; 
free white males under sixteen years of age, forty-eight; free 
white females, 103; negroes, 3217.* Laurens in about 1762 
speaks of a small block of voters being able to turn the election 
in the city of Charleston in a way which implies that the vote 
was small rather than any reference to a close election among 
a large number of voters. 

In 1748 Governor Glen had been five years in South Carolina 
and his experience only served to confirm his early opinion of 
the evils from which he conceived the government to suffer. 
He writes, October loth, to Bedford, the Secretary of State, ^ 
that the constitution of South Carolina ought to be remodeled 
vso as to increase the dependence of the government upon the 



I S. C. Gazette, Feb. 5, 1763. 

' " Heads of Families, S. C," First Census of U. S., 1790, p. 9. 

3 Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society, U.., 303-5. 



Political Conditions in South Carolina 37 

crown, the weakening of which he regards as dangerous. 
Almost all official positions, he complains, are disposed of by/ 
the General Assembly. The Treasurer, Commissary, Indian 
Commissioner, Comptroller of Duties, Powder Receiver, etc., 
besides many executive commissioners, owe their places to the 
Assembly, are responsible to and removable by them alone, 
and are beyond even the Governor's power of reproof.^ 
"Thus by little and little, " he says, "the people have got the 
whole administration in their hands, and the crown is by 
various laws despoiled of its principal flowers and brightest 
jewels."* All church preferments are in the election of the 
people, without any notice taken of the Governor, in direct 
defiance of the King's instructions, which place them at that 
officer's disposal, and it is probably owing to this that the 
Governor "is not prayed for in any parish, although the As- 
sembly is prayed for during their sittings, " a state of affairs, 
he says, unprecedented in America. Governors have sub- 
mitted to various usurpations, thus tending "to mislead the 
Assemblies into the belief that they have the sole direction 
in everything, and a Governor would not be listened to who 
would say that all forts, castles, etc., are the King's." The 
Council, he urges, needs strengthening by the appointment of 
a certain gentleman "for supporting the King's prerogative 
and government, and not of the leveling principles which are 
too prevalent here. " 

An examination into the history of the Assembly for the 
twenty-five years previous to this complaint shows that 
Governor Glen's account is in accord with the facts. The 
Commons House of Assembly had come so much to overbalance 
the other elements in the government that it at times indulged 
in an arrogant and tyrannical exercise of power which no one 

* Which suggests that if the colonists up and down the Atlantic coast had 
not been driven to such means of keeping a distant monarch from con- 
trolling their affairs, we should have much more centralized and efficient 
State executive departments to-day. Cf. Bancroft's statement (ii., 392) 
that "The people of South CaroUna had used every method of encroaching 
upon the executive." 

' Smith, 82. 



38 Life of Henry Laurens 

in the province was strong enough to check. Let us not be 
misled by the division of the colonies into charter, proprietary, 
and royal into thinking of them as in three corresponding 
grades of liberty and self-government. Where differences 
existed, it was due to other causes than these. To elect one's 
Governor was a great privilege, 'tis true; but constantly to be 
fighting to control one appointed from abroad was a very 
valuable exercise and guaranteed at least one prerequisite of 
liberty — eternal vigilance. Doubtless no colony of the thir- 
teen more resembled a modern democracy than the proprietary 
Pennsylvania. The conditions of the new continent, com- 
bined with the character and antecedents of the people, were 
of much more influence than either charters or their absence. 
The occasions on which the South Carolina Commons 
House of Assembly increased and strengthened its power over 
the provincial government were usually connected with its 
claim to the absolute and sole control in the framing and 
passing of money bills ; but inevitably the contest for this 
power often involved other matters of grave constitutional 
importance. Until December, 1725, bills for the raising and 
spending of taxes were admitted to lie in the control of the 
two branches of the colonial legislature jointly and equally, 
except that by custom their origination was always left with 
the Commons. In that year, however, the Commons denied 
the right of the Council to make any change in a money bill, 
though in so doing they went directly contrary to a royal 
instruction guaranteeing to the Council that right. From 
this time the Commons began to measure their privileges by 
those of the British House of Commons, and in the long series 
of conflicts that ensued they never ceased to claim as their 
own the distinctive powers of their ancient model, undeterred 
by the decisions of the ministers and law officers of the crown 
that their contention was unwarranted.^ In 1735 a serious 
clash occurred between the two bodies over the right of the 
Commons to control money bills, in such a way as to involve 

'Chalmers, Opinions oj Eminent Lawyers, i., 263; Smith, 290-1; Wal- 
lace, 48-9. 



Political Conditions in South Carolina 39 

also their right to punish judges for displeasing decisions, 
though rendered in the most conscientious discharge of 
judicial duties. In 1733 the Commons had, in a very arbitrary- 
manner, committed three men to the custody of their messen- 
ger upon the charge of contempt. By issuing writs of habeas 
corpus in their favor, Chief Justice Wright incurred the resent- 
ment of the Commons, and they determined to punish him by 
withholding his pay, which by a plan maintained with a view 
to controlling the King's officers they had always refused to 
make a fixed salary, but granted by special act from year to 
year. The Council, of which Wright was a member, being 
mindful of the interests of those officials who represented the 
royal prerogative, amended the tax bill by adding the custom- 
ary amount for Wright, and insisted that they would not pass 
it without this item. This called forth from the Commons the 
following resolutions of February 8, 1735 : 

Resolved, That His Majesty's subjects in this Province are entitled to all 
the Libertys and Privileges of Englishmen. 

Resolved, That the Commons House of Assembly in this Province, by the 
Laws and Statutes of Great Britain made of force in this Province, and by 
Acts of Assembly in this Province, and by ancient Custom and Usage, have 
the same Rights, Powers, and Privileges in regard to introducing and pass- 
ing Laws for the imposing of Taxes on the People of this Province as the 
House of Commons of Great Britain have in introducing and passing Laws 
on the People of England. 

Resolved, That after the Estimate is closed and added to any Tax Bill, 
that no additions can or ought to be made thereto, by any other Estate or 
Power whatsoever, but by and in the Commons House of Assembly. ' 

The dispute continued, the Council citing the clear com- 
mand of the King's thirty-fifth instruction to Nicholson, the 
first royal Governor, and the Commons refusing to abate one 
tittle from the ancient rights of the British House of Commons . 
There was the usual outcome ; the Council yielded ; one of the 
many instances of which Lieutenant-Governor Bull said years 
later, when the mischief was past mending, that the Commons, 
"thus coming off victorious, soon felt their strength to consist 
in holding the purse strings of the people."^ 

' Smith, 297. » Wallace, 53. 



40 Life of Henry Laurens 

" Holding the purse strings of the people " was a tremendous 
power, and time and again it was used to gain control of 
matters not at all financial in their nature. For instance, in 
1753 James Crokatt, the colonial agent in London, who was 
unacceptable to the Governor and Council but very satis- 
factory to the Commons, offered his resignation. ^ The Council 
refused to concur in his re-election ; but the other House suc- 
ceeded in inducing him to continue in their service until 1756. 
Accordingly the Commons alone kept up the correspondence 
with him and forced the Council to keep its hands off the bills 
appropriating money for his salary and expenses. From this 
time until the Revolution the control of the very important 
duties of the Committee of Correspondence remained in the 
hands of the Commons, in 1762 the arrangment being even 
sanctioned by law." 

But to return to the perfecting of the control of the Com- 
mons over money bills, a power which, as both sides knew, 
could be used as a means to almost any end. In 1737, the 
Commons determined to monopolize the auditing of claims, 
petitions and accounts against the public treasury, a deter- 
mination which they never failed to make good. ^ Repeatedly 
did the Council formally and positively take the stand that it 
must be allowed equal rights in the amendment of money 
bills, only to come out of each contest weakened by defeat 
and less able in future to maintain its position. After a 
prolonged struggle it was agreed, in 1739, that the Council 
might send down on a separate list from the bill suggestions 
for amendments, with the request that the Commons incor- 
porate them in the bill; but in 1748 the Commons declined 
longer to receive such communications.'' 

As is common in such cases, the long and bitter course of 
aggression by the Commons called into activity hostile meas- 
ures beyond what the stronger party had originally intended. 
To the animosities engendered by successive collisions was 
added the contempt for a body whose character was beginning 

'Smith, 165; McCrady ii., 281-2; Wallace, 53-5. 

"Smith, 170; Wallace, 55. » Smith, 302 and 328. 

* Smith, 106, 31 1-2; 318; Wallace, 53. 



Political Conditions in South Carolina 41 

to decline through the appointment of subservient placemen 
to its membership and the refusal of commissions by several 
men of standing. 

In 1745 or shortly after, several members of the Commons, 
acting on their personal responsibility, had gone so far as to 
consult Governor Glen, whose unpleasant relations with the 
Council encouraged their hopes, as to whether he would sign 
the tax bill then in dispute without the concurrence of the 
Council. Though Glen declined to take this revolutionary 
step, his tolerance of the idea was such as to lead the Council 
in 1770 to speak of the danger of their authority being inter- 
preted away and construed into mere advice to the Governor, 
"according to the ingenious distinction of a Governor many 
years ago." ^ In 1756 the Commons as a bod}'' raised the same 
question, and inquired of the Governor whether he would 
sign the tax bill without its having passed the Council. The 
controversy spread to the Gazette, and in a long and able paper 
a champion of the Commons maintained that the Council was 
not a legislative body and could not constitutionally partici- 
pate in law making. So similar is this paper to one endorsed 
by the Commons in 1773 in attempting to deprive the 
Council of legislative authority that its doctrines must have 
become the stock-in-trade of the radical party. Among other 
thmgs, the writer of 1756 said that the royal instructions which 
Councillors were bound to obey on pain of removal could not 
bind the people of South Carolina, for in that case all laws 
and taxes could be imposed through this process by the King ; 
whereas it was the fact that many of the King's instructions 

'Smith, 387; Wallace, 66. The interesting and important character 
of this inquiry so early as 1745 led me to verify the date given in the Public 
Records of South Carolina MS., xxxiii., 306, by reference to the original 
papers in the British Public Record Office in London. 

Such attempts to circumvent the Council were of course not peculiar 
to South Carolina. It is interesting to note instances in the Australasian 
colonies well after the middle of the nineteenth century. Says Lowell: 
" Sometimes the Governor was asked to sanction an expenditure of money 
that had not been legally appropriated because the Legislative Council 
had refused its consent." — Government of England, ii., 403. 



42 Life of Henry Laurens 

to the Governor and Council had never been carried out for the 
simple reason that the representatives of the people had never 

\ seen fit to pass laws to that effect.^ 

Such was the political situation in the province of South 
Carolina when Laurens entered the Commons House of As- 
sembly in 1757. A natural aptitude for politics and the 
consciousness that their most vital interests were to be made or 
marred according as governmental policy went one way or the 
other created an intense interest in public affairs. Even the 
illegal land grabbing before 1735 had played its part in causing 
the representatives of the people to grasp the largest possible 

V, share of political authority. Many of the Assemblymen had 
benefited directly or indirectly through these frauds, and 
there was no way to save themselves from heavy losses but 
by very bold play in the game of politics. Strong men seized 
the government because the control of it was necessary to 
their interests. In the same way at a later time the strongest 
men in the community entered earnestly into politics because 
they felt that it was demanded for the security of another sort 
of valuable property. But aside from these illustrations, the 
leading classes in the community having at stake vast interests 
which could at any time be destroyed by unfriendly legislation, 
men of eminence and ability entered the public arena, and the 
little colony, with its varied, concentrated, active Hfe, became 
one of the finest training schools in statecraft imaginable. It 
was in this school that the leaders of the Revolution and the 
framers of a new government were to be formed — Laurens, 
Gadsden, Lowndes, Pinckney, Lynch, Rutledge — some to 
emerge, according to natural bent, radicals and some conserva- 
tives, but all staunch supporters of well-ordered, deeply 
grounded constitutional liberty and self-government, the 
nature, maintenance, and methods of operation of which they 
were thoroughly familiar with through the practice of a life- 

' Smith, 325, 387 ; McCrady, ii., 285 ; Wallace, 66, 78. General McCrady 

thinks the author of the paper, "T s W 1," was Thomas Wright, 

son of Chief Justice Wright. Cf. the successful attempts of the lower 
House in Pennsylvania eariy in the history of the Province at depriving the 
Council of legislative power. 



Political Conditions in South Carolina 43 

time. We have taken since to placing our most valuable 
interests under the guardianship of the written constitution, a 
very good safeguard against the occasional misuse of power, 
but at the same time one of the most subtle enemies to high 
personnel and good administration that has ever been devised, 
since it makes us willing to place in office some men whom we 
would not have entrusted with the graver interests within 
their power under the old system. 

The spirit of self-reliance and self-government was further 
fostered by the isolation from the mother country and the 
independence of her aid in mastering difficulties. General 
McCrady calls attention to the fact that Colonel Montgomery's 
troops which came in 1760 to suppress the Cherokees were the 
first British soldiers that in the ninety years of the colony's 
existence had ever entered its bounds to help wage its wars, 
and with the exception of Oglethorpe's special regiment pass- 
ing through to Georgia, the only body of British troops that 
had ever been seen by the people of South Carolina. These 
circumstances were producing results which had never been 
designed and were coming to have a potency too strong to be 
counteracted by the measures of a contrary purpose soon to 
be adopted by Great Britain. Governor Glen's presentiments 
of 1744 and -48 were being amply justified. 

Professor Rivers points out the fact that South Carolina has 
from the dawn of her existence her own unbroken constitutional 
history in which her self-government and liberty were devel- 
oped — self-government and liberty which it is as erroneous as 
it is unnecessary to conceive of as imported from any other 
colony or section. The rapid review we have made of the 
political conditions in 1750 is sufficient to establish this fact. 
Professor W. Roy Smith, who has so ably traced these dis- 
putes over money bills, justly says that 

nothing . . . will illustrate better the gradual development of those prin- 
ciples for which South Carolina fought in the Revolution. "The spirit of 
1776" was not a sudden or unexpected product of ministerial tyranny. 
It was the spirit of 1719, the spirit of 1750, grown stronger and more 
determined under the inHuence of forces differing, perhaps in degree, but 
not in kind, from those in operation during the whole colonial period. ' 

» Smith, 315. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CHARLESTON MERCHANT, I747-I77O 

THE eighteenth-century CaroHna merchant filled a large 
and very important sphere. His great wealth, his 
acquaintance with affairs, the value of the services he rendered 
to a community given over to staple farming, made him one 
of the most influential forces in the life of the community. 
McCrady thinks that most of the large fortunes in South 
Carolina before the Revolution had their origin in trade; 
certainly many of the greatest did. The roll of merchants was 
long and honorable, including representatives of the most dis- 
tinguished families in the province. Some of the best known 
were Isaac Mazyck, Gabriel Manigault, Henry and James 
Laurens, Christopher Gadsden, Benjamin Smith, Miles 
Brewton, Andrew Rutledge, Robert Pringle, William Wragg, 
Joseph Kershaw, and Daniel DeSaussure.^ The merchants 
naturally tended to conservative views on politics and finance 
and were sometimes found opposing the paper money schemes 
,of the planters, who wanted a cheap and abundant medium 
'for the purchase of land and slaves. During the first part of 
the royal period they seem to have been in control of the Coun- 
cil, where their opposition to the radical financial schemes of 
the planters in the Commons intensified the unpleasantness 
of the relations of these bodies towards each other ;^ but I see 
no evidence of division along" such lines in the later part of 
the colonial period. 

Laurens's partnership made with Austin in 1748 lasted until 

' McCrady's South Carolina, 1719-76, 400-11. 

2 Smith, 234 et seq. 

44 



The Charleston Merchant, 1 747-1 770 45 

1762, when the latter withdrew on account of ill health. For 
some time the firm had consisted of Austin, Laurens & Appleby, 
but Mr. George Appleby withdrew to go to England, and after 
August I, 1762, Laurens conducted business in his own name 
alone. ^ He is said by his son-in-law. Dr. David Ramsay, to 
have offered in settlement with his partners to take all debts 
due the firm as cash at 95% of their face value, a proposition 
equally complimentary to the business habits of the firm and 
the integrity of their customers.* Laurens's disposition and 
talents were an assurance of success in any systematic or 
administrative occupation. During thirty years, he said while 
in Congress, he had only once or twice lost a paper. Whatever 
might have been the easy-going business habits among others 
at any period of the old Southern history, he was not careless. 
He took notes and bonds of his creditors in the most systematic 
fashion and did not fail to remind them strictly of their obliga- 
tions when overdue. The following extract from a letter of 
April 2, 1777, to Ralph Izard, who was then in London and 
whose affairs Laurens had undertaken to look after, illustrates 
the difference between the man of business and the gentleman 
of leisure — the latter a character which neither Laurens nor 
his father nor his children ever learned to admire. After 
informing Mr. Izard that he had returned 8070 acres, 508 
negroes, and £6000 at interest for taxation for him, and now 
has out £8000, he comments: 

I do not love to do business for a man who takes no care of his own aflFairs. 
Such a one can never be a proper judge of the endeavors of his friends to 
serve him. He is too apt to ascribe ill success to the neglect of those who 
have taken great pains to promote his interests. He is too apt also to 
assign wrong motives for the labors of his friends and to think commissions 
are the temptation. . . . Most men who are careless of all their own affairs 
(their estates, I mean), except the income, when that does not reach their 
expectations, which have been to the very upper line of possibility and no 
allowance made for casualties, they are dissatisfied and too often make 
improper expressions of their displeasure. ^ 

' Laurens to Coxe, Furman & Co., Nov. 6, 1762. 
* Ramsay's South Carolina, ii., 483. 

3 It is proper to say that none of these tmpleasant circumstances had 
arisen in this case. Laurens simply feared they might arise. 



46 Life of Henry Laurens 

His industry was untiring, his application keen and ardent, 
his ingenuity great, his insight quick and sure. Himself a 
man of restless energy, prompt and methodical in the discharge 
of routine, apt in devising means, he was impatient at dull- 
ness or incompetence in those with whom he had to deal, 
either in business or public life. An early riser, he often 
finished a day's work before other men were abroad. ' ' Accord- 
ing to custom, " he writes his brother James, " I am improving 
time an hour and a half before daylight"; and as late as 
December, 1782, he says that, though weak, he "can't yet 
leave off the trick of early rising." His son-in-law Ramsay, 
a prodigious worker, of whom, by the way, the same story is 
told, says that he seldom slept over four hours in the twenty- 
four. * The morning candle-light hour was a favorite time for 
his correspondence. Many passages in his letters reveal the 
pleasure he took in the mere doing of a thing expeditiously and 
successfully, and he often manifests his pride in the extent of 
his business and his satisfaction at being able to render a good 
account to his principals. "How can it be imagined that a 
cargo of the most mangy creatures that ever were seen should 
bring £24 sterling round. . . . Without vanity, we will say 
that none in this country could have turned them out so 
high.''^* 

It was hard to deceive this keen man of affairs, and he was 
but rarely convicted of error in his boast that he soon learned 
the par of exchange of anyone with whom he did business. 
There is a tradition, which sounds true at least, that the follow- 
ing occurred in connection with a young man who applied to 
him for a clerkship. Laurens inquired whether he could write 
a good hand. 

"Yes, sir; I write an excellent hand. " 

"Can you write as well as that?" asked Laurens, showing a 
line of his own firm, well-shaped writing. 

"Oh, yes; I can write better than that," answered the 
applicant. 



' Memoirs of Mrs. Ramsay, 5 1 . 

' Letter of Aug. 30, 1755, referring to a cargo of slaves. 



The Charleston Merchant, 1 747-1 770 47 

"Well, can you write better than that?" asked Laurens, 
showing a beautifully written letter from his mail. 

"Yes, better than that, " said the young man. 

Laurens declined nevertheless to employ him and remarked 
after he was gone that he would be hanged for theft or forgery; 
which gruesome prophecy, so the story goes, unhappily came 
true. 

Laurens's business was that of wholesale commission mer- 
chant, factor, and also independent trader importing and 
exporting on his own account. He dealt in rum, beer, wine, 
deer skins, rice, indigo, marble mantels, newly imported slaves, 
indentured white servants, and indeed pretty much anything 
which correspondents might consign to him. In 1764 we 
find him sending the frame of a house to England. In 1759 
there was a brisk trade in sugar captured by a privateer ; and 
hardly had England seized Guadaloupe when we find him 
importing thence a cargo of coffee. His principal business, 
however, appears to have been in rice, indigo, deer skins, 
wine, and slaves. The large quantities of rice, indigo, 
and deer skins exported made the handling of these a 
great source of wealth; while the vast importations of 
black labor to develop the rapidly expanding agriculture 
of the province and the fact that the human chattels 
paid twice the ordinary commissions and sold with greater 
rapidity made the profits of the factor, not to speak of 
the owner, very large. The terms on which Laurens worked 
were ten per cent, commissions on the " Guinea business, " 
as the slave trade was often called, the factor paying all 
coasting fees, loading, etc., and five per cent, on all other 
sorts of trade. ^ 

December 17, 1767, we find Laurens writing that he 
has indented "seventeen servant passengers" arrived from 
Scotland at £10 each, i.e., had bought them from the importer, 
intending no doubt to sell their services for the term of the 
contract for a greater amount. He collected £4 sterling 
bounty money from the public treasury on these and their 

' Further details of the slave trade will be found in the next chapter. 



48 Life of Henry Laurens 

companions also. In a letter of November 9, 1768, he writes 
to William Fisher, of Philadelphia : 

I have also been concerned in the Palatine trade — have all our old books 
by me — I can see what room and provision they were allowed. I remember 
their cries against masters of vessels and our proceedings thereon. 

Such incidents, which were common enough from end to 
end of the country, show how near we were to white slavery 
and how hard the system of indentured labor died. By the 
early laws of North Carolina the illegitimate child of an in- 
dented woman paid for its mother's sin by being condemned 
to thirty-one years of servitude, a provision, we may believe, 
which lust and greed did not allow to remain unprofitable.^ 
/ This was still the period of the "merchant trader" owning 
f his own ships, and Laurens is sometimes found shipping in 
■ his own bottoms. As illustrating the commerce of the times, 
we may quote the following from a letter of Laurens, Sept. 23, 
1767, to Captain Richard Todd, of the sloop Henry: The 
vessel is laden five-eighths on account of Mr. Henry Todd, Jr., 
& Co., and three-eighths on account of Laurens. Capt. Todd 
is directed to "proceed immediately to Kingston in Jamaica 
and there to dispose of the whole to the best advantage in ready 
money and invest the net proceed (s) in good rum of a fine 
color and full proof or in negroes or in dollars " according to the 
price of each in a scale which Laurens gives. The slaves would 
have been sold in some other colony, as South Carolina was 
then just halfway through her three-year prohibition of the 
trade. The dealing in Spanish silver dollars illustrates how 
the meditmi of exchange is itself made a commodity for specu- 
lation when it consists of two relatively fluctuating parts. 

' The common ignorance of Southern history even by historians is 
illustrated by the statement of Mr. A. Maurice Low, The American 
People, {., 324, that white indented servants were impossible in South 
Carolina. Mr. Theodore D. Jervey, in the South Carolina Historical 
Magazine for October, 191 1, shows that these servants were common — a 
fact which is shown by a very slight examination of the statute book, not to 
go further. I have myself seen an advertisement of an indented Scotch- 
man in a Charleston paper containing the caU for a meeting to support 
American liberty. — North Carolina case, Hawks' North Carolina, ii., 160. 



The Charleston Merchant, 1 747-1 770 49 

In 1746 the rates on freight per ton from Charleston to 
Europe were £6 los. sterling; to the West Indies £4 los., and 
to the northern colonies £3 los. In 1747 the rates were the 
same, and in 1748 the same less 10 shillings in each case. 
September 1 1 , 1 762 , Laurens states that the rate to London was 
as low as £5 a ton. While these rates were so moderate as to 
foster an active commerce, they are probably about six to eight 
times as high as at the present time. 

The sea perils to the small vessels which then visited Charles- 
ton, none of which exceeded 500 tons burden, says McCrady, 
and the risks of primitive transportation, almost constantly 
aggravated by wars, led correspondents to send duplicates, and 
often triplicates, of their letters by as many vessels. I find 
in some instances^ that Laurens sent five copies of an important 
letter. In the time of danger the ordinary number of copies 
was three.* 

An item of commercial news which Laurens transmits in 
1 748 is that the Legislature had reduced the legal rate of interest 
from ten to eight per cent, and failed by only one vote to make 
it £1000 proclamation money fine to charge interest on a 
"book debt," which shows very plainly the hand of the planter. 
He might have added that anyone who charged over eight 
per cent, was to forfeit three times the value of the principal, 
to be divided equally between the public and the prosecutor. ^ 

We are so fortunate as to have the following account of 
business methods in colonial South Carolina : 

' In 1757, e. g., during the Seven Years' War. 

' E. g.,1 found two "originals" of the same letter in several instances, 
once, if I remember correctly, in different libraries. 

3 Statutes at Large, iii., 709. About the beginning of the eighteenth 
century the provincial government paid holders of its bills of credit 12% 
interest and exacted the same rate from delinquent taxpayers. (Carroll, 
ii., 257; Statutes at Large, ii., 258 and 712.) An act of 1721 forbade the 
taking of over 10%. (The legal rate in England was then 5%.) In 1748 
the rate was reduced to 8%, and in 1777 to 7%. Bank interest in 1837 was 
6 %. The rate allowable when none was specified remains 7 % to the present 
day (1914), and until 1882 no higher could be legally contracted for. In 
1882, 10% was allowed by written agreement; reduced in 1889 to 8%. 
Statutes at Large for years cited. 
4 



50 Life of Henry Laurens 

The method of doing business here is to load or ship goods and for the 
amount of cost and charges to draw as soon as the bills of lading are signed 
upon some person in England at thirty to forty days payable in London. ' 

Bills of exchange thus drawn might be sold by the drawer 
to some person wishing to make a payment at a distance, thus 
performing the double service of possessing the creditor in 
the one transaction immediately of his money and the debtor 
in the other with a convenient means of payment. Bills 
drawn upon well-known merchants, particularly of London, 
enjoyed a currency similar to that of bankers' bills of to-day. 
It was in fact common for the great English merchants to 
conduct the private banking business, though such bankers 
were and often still are spoken of as merchants.^ E. g., in 1782 
or -3, William Manning, of London, was spoken of by his 
son-in-law as " Mr. Laurens's merchant " in the sense of banker. 
These are the originals of the great private banking houses 
of to-day. June 26, 1747, Laurens makes a payment to a 
London merchant as follows: James McKay has made a 
draft on Peregrine Fury, Esq., of London, directing him thirty 
days after sight to pay to Hector Beringer de Beaufain the 
sum of £30 sterhng. Laurens bought this of Beatifain, who 
endorsed it in favor of Laurens's London friend, to whom 
Laurens sent it with the request that it be placed to his 
credit. Sometimes the creditor in England was directed to 
get payment from a merchant in his own city with whom the 
Carolinian had previously a general or particular arrangement 
to this eflEect. The American merchant is found remitting 
a limip sum to his English friend to reimburse him for a 
ntunber of such advances as just described or settling them in 
a general balancing of accounts. This, the easiest method of 
foreign payments, would in the nature of the case be open only 
to merchants of unquestioned standing. The practice of send- 
ing one's London creditor a draft on another London merchant 
was in effect only a stricter form of the method just described. 

Bills of exchange, or drafts, as they were called interchange- 
ably, were sometimes drawn in such detail as to show the 

' Laurens to Wm. Perm, of St. Augustine, Dec. 24, 1767. 
^ McClure's Magazine, xxxvi., 4-5. November, 1910. 



The Charleston Merchant, 1 747-1 770 51 

services or goods for which payment was demanded. The 
following is an interesting example : 

£500 St. Augustine, lo December, 1767. 

Thirty days after sight of this first bill pay to the order of Henry Laurens, 
Esq., five hundred pounds Sterling value of him in accoimt for provisions 
to be bought at Charles Town for five hundred Greek settlers to be imported 
into this province by Dr. Turnbull in January next according to advice re- 
ceived from him from Mahon, and place the same to Dr. Andrew Tumbull's 
account without further notice from 

Your most hiomble servant, 

James Grant. 
To Sir William Duncan, Baronet, London. 

Laurens found that Grant had sent £100 too much; he 
therefore defaced and returned the draft. He then himself 
made a draft upon Duncan in London in favor of John 
Drayton, which, it is to be presumed, he sold to Mr. Drayton 
at a price to allow that gentleman a small profit ; and so the 
merchant, Mr. Laurens, had his pay for the supplies sent to 
the Greek colony in Florida. 

May 9, 1768, Laurens writes Wm. Cowes & Company, Bris- 
tol, to supply Mr. Horlbeck with money or goods to the extent 
of £1500 sterling, that amount having been lodged by Horlbeck 
with Laurens for that purpose, and if necessary to make ad- 
vances to a greater amount. Thus a young merchant without 
credit abroad bought the credit of an established trader. 

Protests appear to have been common, in cases, it is to be 
presumed, in which no specific arrangement had been made 
beforehand or in which the drawee was doubtful of the credit 
of the drawer or had not received the goods against which the 
draft was made or was dissatisfied with them. In view of the 
frequency of protests, it was sometimes provided that in case 
of refusal by one drawee it should be presented to another. It 
was customary in the case of failed firms to prefer at 100% the 
claims of creditors who had advanced money to take up non- 
accepted bills of exchange.^ Large simis of coin were trans- 
mitted to make balances or to meet drafts already made or 
to be made by the transmitter of the coin.^ 

' Laurens to Wm. Reeve, Oct. 2, 1767. * lb. 



52 Life of Henry Laurens 

An illustration of foreign drafts of a somewhat later date 
will not be out of place. September 6, 1787, Laurens in South 
Carolina is lending a sum of money to William Jackson in 
Philadelphia. He sends Jackson a draft (first, second, and third 
tenor) on Manning & Vaughn, his old merchant friends and 
business correspondents in London, with two letters of advice, 
to be "connected " with the first and second tenors respectively. 
Three weeks later Laurens writes to Manning & Vaughn advis- 
ing them of the draft. It was customary to send first, second, 
and third tenor of bills of exchange (i.'e., duplicates) by different 
conveyances, particularly in time of war, so as to be the more 
sure of the creditor's receiving payment, as has already been 
described in the case of important letters. ^ 

Bills of exchange appear always to have been expressed in 
sterHng, whereas in transactions within the province, currency 
was meant unless otherwise specified. "The comparative 
value of sterling coin and paper money diverged so far . . . 
that after passing through intermediate grades it was finally 
settled at £7 of paper bills for £1 sterling," says McCrady.^ 
£1 currency thus equalled 69}^ cents in modern American 
coin. "At this rate it assumed the character of ciirrency as 
distinct from sterling, and formed, as it were, another denomi- 
nation and species of money. ... In subsequent contracts 
engagements were made in conformity with this standard." 
This is true as a generalization ; but it was inevitable that the 
actual exchange values of sterling and provincial paper should 
vary with all the conditions that contribute to the demand and 
supply of money in general and the two kinds in particular. 
There was no such constancy of exchange at seven to one as 
the statements generally made would infer. This is amply 
proved by the following table which I have constructed from 
such quotations as I have happened upon. ^ 

^ E.g., Laurens to Mrs. Mary Gittens, Oct. 20, 1747; Laurens to Crokatt, 
Oct. 7, 1747, and many others. 

^ South Carolina, ii., 272, quoting Ramsay. 

3 Carroll, ii., 234, 258; Statutes at Large, iii., 340, 360, 393, 449, 483, 
511, 538; Ramsay, ii., 162-3; McCrady, ii,, 396, and various letters of 
Laurens. It is hardly necessary to remark that the closely stated odd rates 



The Charleston Merchant, 1 747-1 770 53 

Paper money, first issued in 1703, maintained its value for 
some years, but depreciated rapidly after the second issue in 
1 707 . The rates for certain dates are as follows, though it may 
be relied upon that the fluctuations were much more numerous 
and uneven than appears here : 



In year 


1710 


150 currency equaled loo sterling 




1714 


200 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1722 


400 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1731 


700 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1733 


700 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1734 


700 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1736 


740 


* 100 ' 






1737 


740 


' 100 ' 






1738 


800 


' 100 ' 






1739 


800 " 


' 100 ' 






1748 


700 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1755 


700 " ' 


' 100 ' 




Sept, 


1764 


721 


' 100 ' 






1764 


775 


' 100 ' 




Apr. 29 


1767 


700 " ' 


' 100 ' 






1770-3' 


762 " ' 


' 100 ' 





Lieutenant Governor Bull describes the situation correctly 
(as the statutes do not) when he says that the ratio varied 
according to the balance of trade. Laurens's attempting in 
1764 to get 850 to 100, but succeeding at only 775, is typical 
and indicates that the fluctuations were even within short 
periods considerable and must have often occasioned sharp 
losses. Again, when Laurens writes, e. g., that exchange is 
selling at about 7% to i , and that he is seeking to get 8 to i , it 
shows that South Carolina currency was considerably below 
its supposed 7 to i which the colonial statutes accept — its 
legal ratio, it might without violence be called — and probably 
also that there was a very heavy demand for bills on London 
to pay the balances due by our merchants. Assuming 7 to i 
to be the normal rate, and that no element of further depre- 



of the merchant are a truer index than the round numbers given by the 
statute book as the ratio for that year. 
^ Exact date within 1770-3 not known, 



54 Life of Henry Laurens 

elation entered, in the parlance of to-day a rate of 7M~8 to i 
would be represented by bankers' bills' on London selling in 
New York at $5.38 to $5.56, $4,866 being par. 

Another term in connection with colonial finance should 
be explained: proclamation money. The paper money of the 
various colonies had, of course, different values, and hence 
the value of foreign coins as of English coins — the latter of 
which facts the authors of "proclamation money" seem to 
have ignored — was a different number of shillings or pence in 
each colony. Apparently imagining that this was due to an 
erroneous estimate of the true value of the foreign coins and 
especially to a desire to draw them to one's own colony by 
placing a higher value upon them than did others, Queen 
Ann in 1707 forbade any person to treat foreign gold and silver 
as worth more than one-third more than the value of his 
colonial paper money. I.e., a Spanish coin containing 21 shil- 
lings' weight in metal must not be paid or taken as equivalent 
to more than 28 shillings of the most worthless paper on the 
continent. This typical ' ' greenbacker ' ' idea of the good queen 
is so absurd that one suspects that one has missed the pro- 
clamation's meaning until one sees that other commentators 
give the same explanation and then reflects upon some modern 
American financial history. All the writers tell us that the\ 
people in South Carolina paid it no regard, and we find mer- \ 
chant Laurens writing, April 18, 1767, that a gold doubloon 
was worth in South Carolina currency £23 (as its metal war- 
ranted) and saying nothing of the £43^ which the law com- 
manded.^ Similarly the Spanish dollar passed at £1 12s. 6d., 
instead of the 4s. 6d. of the proclamation, in contempt of the 
threatened six months' imprisonment and cumulative fines 
which every inhabitant of the province thus braved. It is 
hardly necessary to remark that in South Carolina "proclama- 

' Laurens to Fisher, in Historical Society of Pennsylvania collections. 
The doubloon was worth at various times tmtU 1853, says Webster's New 
International Dictionary, $16.58 to $15.75. The Century gives the value 
of the Spanish double doubloon as $16.48 from 1730 to 1772. If £23 South 
Carolina currency was exact par of exchange (at 7 to i of sterling, as it then 
was) the metallic value of the doubloon would be $15.98)4. 



i 



The Charleston Merchant, 1 747-1 770 55 

tion money" was little more than a legal fiction. It was in 
fact merely a sort of money of acount in which amounts were 
sometimes expressed, but had no real existence or coins. ^ 

The business of Austin & Laurens was very extensive and 
profitable, deriving as it did from the elder partner his estab- 
lished position and property, and from the younger his youth- 
ful energy and the comfortable patrimony, good will, and wide 
connections inherited from his father. Laurens says in 1767 
that the firm did as large a business as was ever done in South 
Carolina. During the fourteen years of this partnership and 
the eight years of his business life following it, we find Laurens's 
transactions touching correspondents, among other places, 
in Liverpool, London, Oxford, Bristol, Cowes, Glasgow, 
Jamaica, Barbadoes, New Providence, Tortola, St. Christo- 
pher, St. Kitts, Antigua, Guadaloupe, Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, Savannah, St. Augustine, Oporto, Lisbon, Madrid, 
Havana, Rotterdam, and after 1775 Rochelle, Nantes, and 
Bordeaux. The intercolonial correspondence of the great 
merchants was one of the earliest agencies for promoting the 
acquaintanceship which was so necessary to common action 
in the events leading to the Revolution and was not without 
important effects. The standing of Laurens and his firm was 
of the highest. In 1 763 he writes to a discourteous correspond- 
ent that never before had the least aspersion been cast upon 
him, and repels it with a severity the more cutting because 
restrained. He could boast at the end of his career that he 
had never intentionally violated the navigation laws, and the 
Judge of Vice Admiralty in a case in which a ship of his was 
involved took occasion to speak of his known character for 
probity as sufficient guarantee that there could have been no 
fraud. It is common to relate with a boastful chuckle the 
false entries and other papers, every one of which involved a 
falsehood, by which the New England trader evaded the acts 
of trade and practiced a freedom of commerce indicative of his 
love of liberty. Whether the love was of liberty or of money, 
I cannot but feel pride in the fact that not only Laurens, but 

* Statutes at Large, ii., 563, 708-11. 



56 Life of Henry Laurens 

the bulk of the great Carolina merchants, his contemporaries, 
were of such unspotted personal integrity as to be able to make 
such a declaration as that just quoted from him and to make 
even suspicion regarding their intentions impossible to a jeal- 
ous Court of Vice Admiralty. 

Though Laurens was firm, methodical, and upright in his 
business relations, and very definite and clear-cut in his opin- 
ions and statements about the men he had to deal with, he 
proved on frequent occasions much more kindly to delinquents 
than these qualities would have led us to expect. While 
always quick to denounce improper conduct in unambiguous 
terms, he was never either in private or public life vindictive 
in following up a wrongdoer.^ We find him bringing the 
sin straight home to the slipshod, the ingrate, the defrauder, 
or the delinquent of even deeper dye. As to the blackness of 
the guilt and where it belongs there must be no misunderstand- 
ing; but clemency readily responded to contrition in the 
offender, and he was more anxious to secure the amendment 
of character than the infliction of penalty. But though his 
business relations exhibit the man's character in many as- 
pects, there are others which it did not bring out. Soon after 
getting successfully launched, the young man of business 
married, and other interests began to multiply. As he rose in 
importance in the community, he became active in various 
phases of public life, and these things all had their part in 
developing and tempering his powers. He had also built up 
large interests as a planter. Before going further we must 
take a view of these sides of his life. 

^ Whether anything in the Deane-Lee matter constitutes an exception 
might occasion differences of opinion. 



CHAPTER V 

FAMILY LIFE AND TRAITS OF CHARACTER, I75O-7O 

YOUNG HENRY LAURENS is said to have met "the beau- 
tiful Eleanor Ball," daughter of Elias Ball the immigrant, 
at her brother's wedding at Coming-tee, Mrs. Affra Coming's 
plantation on Cooper River, and to have fallen in love with 
her at first sight. ^ On July 6, 1750 (i.e., June 25, Old Style), 
at the age of twenty-six, he was married to this splendid 
young woman of nineteen. Her ancestors came to South 
Carolina from Devonshire, England, about the end of the 
seventeenth century.^ In a letter of 1747 Laurens's friend, 
Rev. St. John, rallies him, evidently about some young lady; 
but the stroke drew no spark, and I know of no other 
reference to any love affair. 

Henry and his younger brother James, who had also become 
a prosperous merchant, seem to have been at this time the only 
ones of their name left in Charleston, though some of their 
nephews and nieces resided in the town. The friendship 
between the brothers remained to the end unalloyed and 
intimate. 

Throughout her married life, Mrs. Laurens gave herself to 
her heavy responsibilities as wife and mother with the fullest 
devotion, and the couple were united in perfect love and sym- 
pathy. The frequency and character of Laurens's references 

» Mrs. Ravenel's Charleston, 158. Mrs. Ravenel's great-aunt married 
Laurens's son, and hence this pretty piece of family tradition comes to us 
very directly. The place, sometimes spelt "Coming T," derives its name 
doubtless from being the home of the Comings in the "T," as it is called, 
formed by the forks of the Cooper River. 

"Ramsay's Memoirs, 11. 

57 



58 Life of Henry Laurens 

to her in his correspondence show that their companionship 
was cordial and happy. ' He tempts guests \vith visions of the 
splendid mince pies and famous hams they may expect their 
hostess to set before them. A good housekeeper, a good 
counsel-keeper; she "never tells a secret"; and he calls her 
"a tender and watchful mother to (our children) and a faith- 
ful friend in all respects to me. " 

His "riches in a family" increased almost as rapidly as his 
worldly possessions ; but unhappily many of the children died 
young. Laurens A\Tites, October i, 1768, that Mrs. Laurens 
was "confined to her chamber (as usual once in the round of a 
twelvemonth) under the mortifying reflections which arise 
from the loss of a very fine girl. " It occurs to the twentieth- 
century reader that Mr. Laurens ought himself to have felt 
some mortification at being in a position to write a parenthesis 
like that. But it was very much the colonial way. In those 
days they married early, had troops of children, who contrary 
to the order of nature and propriet3^ were mostly buried before 
their parents. The young mothers, frequently put to the 
strain of child-bearing before they were full-grown women, and 
allowed short rest between times, too often laid their weary 
bodies among their little ones long before reaching middle life. 
Two or three ^^dves to a man was common. George Washing- 
ton's brother Samuel had five wives and died at forty-seven 
at that. In 1754-5 the death rate, meaning e^ddently to 
include both whites and blacks, for the large parish of St. 
Philip's was 137 to a population of 491 1, i. e. to say 29.7 to 
the thousand, which is, sad to say, a good deal better than for 
the Charleston of a hundred and fifty years later. ^ Only four 
of Laurens's twelve or more children reached maturity and 

^ As Laurens was never away from home except for brief trips to his 
plantations during the life of his wife, letters to her would be rare. I have 
never seen one. 

^ South Carolina Gazette, June 12-19, ^755- The death rate for the 
United States in 1909 was 15 per thousand; for ordinary cities about 17 to 
20; for Charleston, according to the census of 1900, 37.5 for all classes; 25.6 
for whites, and 46.7 for negroes. Carroll, ii., 484, states the population of 
Charleston in 1763 as about 8,000, about equally divided between whites 
and blacks. 



Family Life and Traits of Character 59 

only three survived their father. ' Those bitter griefs mingled 
so thick with the sweet associations of family life that Frank- 
lin's consolation to him as an old man that he had had more 
than his share of sorrow would have been appropriate at any 
time. His first three children, two girls and a boy, born 
in 1751, 1752, and 1753, all died early. Not until John, in 
1754, did he have a child that was destined to grow to maturity. 
A third son, born in 1758, died in infancy. In the fearful 
scourge of smallpox in 1760, his daughter Martha, less than one 
year old, was so ill as to be pronounced dead, and was about to 
be prepared for burial when discovered by Dr. Moultrie ^o be 
alive. She lived to be the third wife of Dr. David Ramsay and 
the mother of eleven children in sixteen years (after which she 
fell on rest) and was in every other way a very remarkable 
person. In 1764 Laurens lost a nine-year-old girl, an affliction 
which he deeply felt; and so on, sometimes in cruel, sudden 
form, "the last enemy " struck down his sons and daughters as 
the tempest the children of Job. His sorrows added a note 
of resignation to his character, but they did not take from him 
the quiet, deep peace of a man of religious nature attached 
to home and wife and children, prepared to quaff much of 
bitter from the cup of life and yet find satisfaction in human 
relationships. 

To his friend Monkhouse Davison, of London, Laurens 
writes, October 15, 1762, an account of himself: 

Your affectionate inquiry after my riches in a family is very obliging. I 
have, thank God, the wife he gave me in 1750; and of more than a [half] 

' See genealogy in appendix. I cannot reconcile the statement of Mr. 
H. R. Laurens that the child Eleanor was born in 1757 instead of 1755 with 
Laurens's letters. Laurens says in December, 1764, that he lost that year 
' ' a dead eldest daughter, ' ' and in August, 1 764, speaks of ' ' the sudden death 
of my dear little improved girl Nelly." If Nelly was a nick-name for 
Eleanor (Laurens called his wife Nelly. See Laurens to Ball, Aug. 9, 1763, 
in Historical Society of Pennsylvania collections), and another Eleanor 
was bom in 1757, then he named two living children Eleanor. I find no 
reference to any chUd born in 1757. If there was, then Laurens had 
thirteen children; and if either "James Laurens, child," or the unnamed 
Laurens child, buried 1760 and 1755, was his in addition, then he had 
fourteen. 



6o Life of Henry Laurens 

dozen children of one sort and another, I am blessed with one boy about 
eight years old, a girl of seven and one about three.' I believe if any- 
thing tempts me to cross the Atlantic Ocean it will be to put the boy to 
school in England. He is very forward in his books and behaves so well in 
general as to gain at least the approbation of a partial father. I am glad 
you are so happy in your nieces. May your pleasures daily increase; 
but I should be rather more pleased to hear that you had some sons and 
daughters of your own, and then you would be convinced that the difference 
between the love of an uncle and that degree of pleasure which a parent 
enjoys is as great as the difference between the faint light of the moon and 
the warm and cheerful beams of the universal eye. 

,' I have settled two plantations in the country and I have two valuable 
and very improvable lots of land in this town and besides these (sic); 
fwhich shews you that I have no intention to wander from my own country, 
i I have reserved a sum sufficient to carry on my little plan of trade without 
■ putting me to the trouble of borrowing or the inconvenience of being in 
debt. I am as contented and generally as cheerful as most folk and travel 
on with patience through life's chequered paths endeavoring to prepare 

' I have suppKed the word "half" in brackets for the following reasons: 
Laurens had had at this time seven or eight children, three of whom were living 
and four dead. I take him to mean that he had "more than a half dozen 
children," living and dead. The habit of many persons in stating the num- 
ber of their children to include all who have been bom to them, whether still 
living or not, is very common. He gives an account of each living child, 
but makes no further allusion to the ones he has lost. The expression as it 
stands transcribed in the letter-book from the original, "more than a dozen 
children of one sort and another," might be conceived 'o mean legitimate 
and illegitimate; but to one acquainted with the character of the man, this 
interpretation is impossible. No decent man of the world, to say nothing 
of a sincere Christian of rather strict conduct, as we shall come to see 
Laurens was, would join in the same sentence an affectionate reference to 
his wife and a flippant allusion to illegitimate children and continue in the 
strain which the balance of the letter exhibits. At about this time Laurens 
speaks of having lost an overseer by having remonstrated with him for 
living in open adultery and in 1763 he summarily discharged another for 
adultery with one of the negresses at Mepkin — conduct on distant plan- 
tations which would hardly be so offensive to an employer who could allude 
so cavalierly to his own escapades. Mistakes such as the omission of this 
little word "half" are very common in writing, either in the original or in 
letter-book transcriptions, but they are not usually so embarrassing as in 
this case or in the "wicked Bible" of 1 631, in which the printer omitted 
" not " from the seventh commandment. In the letter in question (which is 
copied by a clerk into the letter-book and is not in Laurens's handwriting) 
six lines further on, the clerk wrote "Paren, " when he discovered his mis- 



Family Life and Traits of Character 6i 

myself for submitting when I arrive at its uncertain period with a becoming 
resignation. 

Laurens was so overburdened in 1764 with merchandise and 
planting that he had to turn off business. One of his ship 
captains died, and also his wife's brother John Coming Ball, 
his "best friend and best overseer, " who managed two of his 
plantations, as he himself was still a very green planter. "It 
has been a year of sorrows ; a dead eldest daughter, a sick and 
dying wife. "^ Dec. 13, the wife "is now abroad again, " and 
on the 17th she is well. Truly his griefs were many. His 
poor, dear wife must have found life a weary burden. So 
many children born with pain and lost with sorrow; the cry 
of the new-born babe so soon followed by the cry of the bereft 
mother, and the father sadly afflicted. 

take, struck it through and wrote "Father." The clerk copies several of 
his letters to Ettwein as to "Edwin." I may cite, e. g., the following which 
have come casually to my attention: In a letter of November 9, 1768, 
quoted below, he refers, according to his copyist, to the African slave 
catchers as "baptized heathen," evidently meaning to contrast these 
unbaptized heathen with a Mr. Jackson's treatment of poor Irish Protestants. 
In a letter of May 30, 1782, Laurens is recorded in Wharton's Diplomatic 
Correspondence as writing seventeen years, an error which, to one acquainted 
with his life, does not need the correct statement in the letter of June 24 
following to be recognized as intended for seven years. John Adams in 
writing to Franklin, June 9, 1782, says "last week," meaning plainly last 
month. Laurens, in his letter of June 24, 1782, means his ransom, but 
writes his "reason," according to Wharton. Laurens's letter to Franklin 
dated April 20, 1782, should be April 30, as the accompanying letters show. 
Again, Laurens acknowledges the receipt of £16,666, 13 shillings, meaning 
16,666 livres, 13 sols. I have been put to considerable trouble because of 
Laurens or his secretary's endorsing a letter "Dec. 10, 1770," which should, 
have been "Dec. 10, 1780." These illustrations are equally pertinent 
whether the mistakes occurred in the original writer, the letter-book copyist, 
or the modern editor. 

I have taken this notice of the Davison letter lest I might appear as 
wishing to conceal what I feared might be damaging. Coming upon it 
before I had become familiar with Laurens's character, I regarded it as 
possibly compromising and read it with regret. As I became more thor- 
oughly acquainted with Laurens's character, I saw how impossible was such 
a supposition. 

' Letter of Nov. 9, 1764. 



62 Life of Henry Laurens 

Before 1764 Laurens lived south of Broad Street in St. 
Michael's parish.^ In the spring of 1764 he moved into his 
"fine new house with a wall all upon the front of my garden" 
in Ansonboro, in what was then the northern part of the town.* 
Ansonboro was for many years before and after the Revolu- 
tion the fashionable quarter of the city, as is attested by the 
grandeur of some of the ancient residences that still give it 
dignity. Chief Justice Pinckney built a mansion there, which 
during his absence in England from 1753 to 1758 was occupied 
by Governor Glen.^ Near Laurens, "Thomas Lynch had 
built an elegant house of cypress from his plantation on the 
Santee, " using a material which was very common then for 
building purposes. 

The Laurens house still stands, at the comer of East 
Bay and Laurens streets, essentially as originally built.'' 
It is not by any means so imposing, convenient, or beautiful 
either inside or out as many others of the period, but seems 
nevertheless the natural expression of the firm-set, unostenta- 
tious character of the man who made it, like him severe and 

^Appendix to the Extracts, etc., 58, states that he was living in St. 
Michael's in 1762. 

2 Laurens to "John Edwin" (Ettwein), March 13, 1764, in Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania collections, says that he expects to move into his 
new house next week; December 24 he writes another correspondent that 
he is in it. 

3McCrady, ii., 398; Mrs. Ravenel's Charleston, 141 and 156. 

4 General McCrady, South Carolina as a Royal Province, 398, inadvert- 
ently places it across the street in the square to the southwest. Mrs. 
Ravenel, in her Charleston, the Place and the People, speaks of the house as 
much changed. Mrs. Ravenel, whose great-aunt married Henry Laurens's 
son, has been so kind as to write me that it was a family tradition that the 
house was so much injured by British sheUs during the siege that the present 
roof was afterward added. Cf. the letter of Laurens's employee James 
Custer immediately after the siege, who in describing to his master minutely 
the damage his property had suffered says that ' ' a shel . . . entered through 
the rouf of the Passage & Boarsted in the midst of it. threw the Mahogany 
stairs in flinters besides considerable other damage." The outhouses 
were struck too often to be counted; stable and kitchen were entirely down, 
garden entirely destroyed, one house seized as barracks for Hessians and the 
residence "hardly worth repairing." — James Custer to Laurens, June, 1780, 
in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



Family Life and Traits of Character 63 

four-square to all the winds that blow. The house is a plain, 
rather barn-like, square-built structure 38 feet 6 inches by 
60 feet 7 inches on the outside, with jerkin-head roof, and 
consists of four large rooms downstairs and four up, a spacious 
attic, besides several small apartments. It is of nine-inch- 
long brick and is built so substantially from the cellar to the 
heavily hewn timbers of the spacious attic, where old wine 
bottles and demijohns mutely remind us of good times in the 
great dining and ball rooms below, that when over a hundred 
and twenty years old it passed through the earthquake of 1886 
uncondemned and is to-day firm and true. ^ As one enters the 
small hallway at the south amounting to little more than a 
vestibule, stairs on the left lead to the upper story and a door 
to the right admits to the library. There is no hallway through 
the house. The library measures 18 feet 8 inches by 17 feet 
2 inches. On one side of the broad chimney and all the way 
across the back, save for the width of the hall door in the corner, 
there are built as part of the house high mahogany bookcases, 
whose beautiful glass doors, patterned in octagons with 
subordinate squares and triangles, express dignity and re- 
finement. The shelving amounts to two hundred linear 
feet. 

To the east of the library is the dining room, whose dimen- 
sions of 273^ by 17 Ys feet proclaim the hospitality for 
which it was designed. The paneled chimney measures 10 
feet and % inch across all the way to the ceiling. Im- 
mediately above is the ballroom, of the same proportions. 
Some of the mantels are of marble and some of simply 
carved wood. Simplicity of style and dignity of pro- 
portions, in keeping with the master's taste in all things, 
mark all the apartments.^ 

' I am compelled to say, however, that all that I have been able to 
discover regarding the traditions of Washington's and Lafayette's having 
honored its halls seems to show that they never entered it. 

* In 1 77 1, while Laurens was in England, a stroke of lightning shattered 
the house in many parts, destroyed much furniture and melted the silver- 
ware. The family, though present, were uninjured. Laurens's letter, 
of December 26, 1771. 



64 Life of Henry Laurens 

A yard and garden of four acres reclaimed from the tide^ still 
lie to the south and east, though the only traces of their former 
beauty which the most credulous tradition lover can point out 
are a few fig bushes. The garden was "under the care of 
John Watson, an English gardener brought out to attend to 
it, " says Mrs. Ravenel.^ In it there were, besides shrubs and 
flowers, oranges, sugar cane, figs, olives, and numerous rare 
and beautiful plants gathered from distant lands. After 
visiting the up-country, Laurens gathered through his friends 
around Ninety-Six a variety of flowers, roots, and seeds of the 
native growths . ^ When native figs were a curiosity in America 
he raised great quantities and annually gathered fifty to a 
hundred bushels of olives.'' 

Into this new home Colonel and Mrs. Laurens moved in 
1764, with their little ten-year-old John, five-year-old Martha 
("Patsy" as they called her),^ and one-year-old baby Henry. 

^ Large areas, comprising some of the most beautiful spots in the city, 
have been so reclaimed and the process is still going on. The best known 
examples are White Point Gardens, the Battery, and the Botdevard. 

^ Charleston, 158. 

3 If the following curious passage does not indicate that Laurens ate 
rattlesnake, what does it mean? In writing to Andrew Williamson in the 
back country, Oct. 30, 1764, he acknowledges the "chestnuts, hazelnuts, 
Telonish & puccoon, for which I return thanks as I do for the poor unfor- 
tunate rattlesnake whose body made an addition to my table today." — 
Letter in Historical Society of Pennsylvania MSS. 

Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, writes me, 
January 22, 1914, that he does not know of any custom of eating rattle- 
snakes by either the aborigines or the white settlers in America, but that 
"It has been stated that the eating of snakes is a recognized custom in Italy, 
the snake being referrred to as 'eel of the hedge,' as distinguished from 'eel 
of the water.'" 

Prof. Alexander F. Chamberlain, of Clark University and author of an 
article in the Britannica on the American Indian, writes me, February 14, 
1914, that "Roast rattlesnakes were eaten by a number of our Indian 
tribes," but cannot answer my inquiry regarding whites. 

Laurens, we know, was an ardent experimenter, and the rattlesnake was 
sent him along with plants and seeds with which he was experimenting. 

< John Adams's Journal, Dec. 5, 1782, quoted in Wharton, vi., 109. 

5 So it could not have been at either one of the windows at the East Bay 
house which tradition points out with such circumstance and certainty, 



Family Life and Traits of Character 65 

He was now forty years of age. Success, wealth, influence, pub- 
lic respect had come as he " traveled with patience through life's 
chequered paths . ' ' Though severely disciplined by sorrow , yet 
he appears very much the same man, only deepened and broad- 
ened, whom we saw crossing the Atlantic and setting up his bus- 
iness in 1 747-8-9 . His life-long trait of kindness of heart became 
more pronounced with age, though often obscured from outsid- 
ers by the quick, tart, impatient speech with which he was 
prompt to lash the man in whom he thought he saw pomposity, 
pretense, or meanness. He tells us that he never imprisoned a 
person for debt and scarcely ever even sued for a debt. ^ His 
kindness was ever ready to his slaves, the poor, the wronged, or 
to worthy young men beginning their career. Under him the 
harsh features of slavery were made as light as possible. Writ- 
ing, April 1 , 1765, to young Elias Ball, the son of John Coming 
Ball his brother-in-law, about the settlement of the estate of the 
latter, with whom Laurens had planted in partnership, he says : 

I don't know anything that cotild have contrived to distress and em- 
barrass my plantation again more than the necessary division of fathers, 
mothers, husbands, wives and children who tho (sic) slaves are stUl human 
creatures, and I cannot be deaf to their cries least (sic) a time should come 
when I should cry and there shaU be none to pity me. * 

Mrs. Laurens also cared for their needs and the overseers' 
wives, when able, sewed for them. Along with a group of 
negroes going to the plantation, Laurens sent these directions 
to the overseer : 

Two of the women with child and near their time be very careful of them 
and employ a proper woman if any in the neighborhood or agree with Dolly 
Hayes to take care of them until they can go about. Mrs. Laurens has 
given baby clothes to one and will send some for the other next week. All 
these people even the boys are fit to go to work therefore improve their time 
as Mr. Ball may direct. . . .^ 

after the manner of tradition, that they laid her for dead with the smallpox, 
for she was under one year old when that occurred. 

' Appendix to Extracts, etc., 52. 

* Historical Society of Pennsylvania collections. 

J Laurens to James Lawrence, Jan. i, 1765; Laurens to Schad, April i, 
1765, in Historical Society of Pennsylvania collections. 



66 Life of Henry Laurens 

The sorrows of an obscure slave, though far away, touched 
his heart. Writing, October 26, 1767, to the overseer of a 
Georgia plantation, he charges : 

Let Sam have everything that he shall stand in need of ; he is a good hand, 
but sickly, aild note what rum and sugar he uses, and give aU the workmen 
a dram of grog when you see occasion. . . . 

The women are to make their own clothes, and you will remember that 
some are to be clad in striped flannel, which you may also give for the 
children. Give blankets where they are really needed. 

Be kind to Berom in his affliction. 

Poor, dim, black Berom, who stands out in a line in the white 
man's letter to illustrate another's good qualities a hundred 
years after he is dead. Nobody cares now and few cared much 
then what his affliction was; but fortunately for him as he 
trod his slave's path through life, he had a master who remem- 
bered that Berom had a human heart, sensitive to suffering 
and responsive to kindness. The master's soul had been 
wrung the month before by a sorrow which would make him 
feel all men's sorrows more. September 24, 1767, he wrote 
to James Habersham : 

Mrs. Laurens was delivered the loth instant of as fine and promising a 
boy as ever was bom under my roof, and this day that poor boy is delivered 
of all the troubles and vexations complained of above and of ten thousand 
thousand more in the common lot of himian life. He was attacked three 
days ago by a disorder the good women call the purple thrush and died this 
morning. The woman, but weak and low before, suffers extremely not- 
withstanding her exemplary patience and meekness tmder this sudden 
change and disappointment. 

The woman! "The woman suffers extremely." — "As 
fine and promising a boy as ever was bom under my roof." 
Oh, God! Did this all happen in old Charles Town in 1767 
or any and everywhere on yesterday? Sad days in the old 
East Bay house. 

Laurens would retain no overseer, however profitable, who 
was cruel to his negroes, and he lost another because he could 
not see him living in adultery on a distant plantation without 
a firm remonstrance, and a third he stimmarily discharged for 



i 



Family Life and Traits of Character 67 

immorality with a slave woman. We find him settling without 
charge the simple affairs of some poor sailor who had died 
far from his native land and sending what little effects he 
left, with a letter of consolation, to his widow. In 1769 in 
a bitter controversy in which it appeared the intent of each 
disputant to rake up everything possible against the other, his 
antagonist, Egerton Leigh, saw fit to sneer at "the religious 
Mr. Laurens, " his "sly dollar " or basket of bread given to the 
poor, "his table, full and amply spread to every Skipper in 
the trade," his subscribing, from self-interest it was hinted, 
to every public cause and likewise helping young merchants ; 
and to cap the climax, Leigh charged with special glee that he 
had pretended to a superior virtue by withdrawing from the 
slave trade on account of tenderness of heart. A shining 
illustration of how Laurens governed his business by the 
dictates of humanity is found in his reply to his friend William 
Fisher, of Philadelphia, who was seeking to enlist his influence 
in the Assembly in favor of a Mr. Jackson in collecting bounty 
money on a number of Irish Protestants imported into South 
Carolina. ^ 

Laurens wrote (November 9, 1768) : 

I must act as shall appear to be right and without partial favor, although 
my good friend Mr. Fisher becomes his advocate, and I am sure he would 
not love me if I acted upon other principles. ... If you knew the whole 
aflfair it would make your humanity shudder. I have been largely concerned 
in the African trade. I quitted the profits arising from that gainful branch 
principally because of many acts from the masters and others concerned 
toward the wretched negroes from the time of purchasing to that of selling 

' Feb. II, 1768, the brigantine Lord Dungamore brought one hundred and 
twenty and the snow Billy Greg one hundred and fifty passengers from the 
north of Ireland. — McCrady's South Carolina as a Royal Province, 593. 
Whether these were Mr. Jackson's I do not attempt to say. 

William Fisher, Laurens's constant correspondent in business and esteemed 
friend, was a prominent Quaker merchant of Philadelphia. He married 
Sarah Coleman and was the father of Samuel W. Fisher. He was made a 
Common Councilman of Philadelphia in 1767, Alderman in 1770, a Manager 
of the Corporation for the Relief of the Poor the same year, and was Mayor 
of the city, 1773-4. — J. R. Young, editor: Memorial History of Phila- 
delphia, i, 367. 



68 Life of Henry Laurens 

them again, some of which, although within my knowledge, were uncon- 
trorolable' — ^yet I never saw an instance of cruelty in ten or twelve years 
experience in that branch equal to the cruelty exercised upon those poor 
Irish, who are to be, I suppose, the subject of Mr. Jackson's application. 
No! Selfinterest prompted the baptized heathen to take some care of 
their wretched slaves for a market, but no other care was taken of those poor 
Protestant Christians from Ireland but to deliver as many as possible alive 
on shoar upon the cheapest terms, no matter how they fared upon the 
voyage nor in what condition they were landed.* I have been also con- 
cerned in the Palatine trade — have our old books by me — I can see what 
room and provision they were allowed. I remember their cries against 
Masters of vessels and our proceedings thereupon; therefore am not quite 
ignorant of what ought to have been done in Mr. Jackson's case to save a 
number of poor deluded (compare the pompous advertisements dispersed 
in Ireland with the list of provisions and the scanty bed places) creatures 
from death and wretchedness, and to save this town and province too more, 
as I apprehend, than the amount of the expected bounty money. I cannot 
forbear opposing the unjust man and the oppressor; but I do not mean, for 
all this, to shut my ears to the voice of reason. If she speaks, I shall listen 
and obey. 

After this we are not surprised to read Laurens's remark 
in a letter of January 28, 1768: "The bounty to foreign poor 
Protestants having been much abused will be discontinued." 

Laurens writes in 1 77 1 that he had lost very heavily in recent 
years by "acts of kindness done to others"; but nevertheless 
he continued his considerate helpfulness to the last. In 1767 
he put up a large amount to keep one of his friends' relatives 
out of debtors' prison and had the experience of seeing the 
debtor run away. He robbed me of enough to ruin some men, 
and made me feel it, but he would not, he says, take advantage 
of even an enemy; and so when the man's lands were sold at 
a ruinously low figure, the much injured but magnanimous 
Laurens bought them in and offered them to the ingrate at the 
same figure, plus the bail he had forfeited. This was in 
harmony with Laurens's usual conduct. At another time he 

' Letter-book copyist blunder, doubtless. 

* The MS. reads "baptized heathen," as in the text. This suggests an 
interesting question as to whether Laurens was so far advanced in his abhor- 
rence of the slave trade as to speak thus of English and American traders, 
or whether the MS., which is a transcript, shoidd be "unbaptized heathen," 
meaning the slave catchers in Africa. I incline to the latter view. 



Family Life and Traits of Character 69 

says to a friend that he often aids but never oppresses the poor. 
He was greatly drawn to boys and young men, as we shall see 
illustrated with unusual beauty in his relations with his sons, 
and was always ready to secure business among his wide circle 
of correspondents for young merchants without much money, 
as he says, but with excellent character and credit. 

It was the habit of the merchant or professional man in old 
South Carolina as he prospered to invest in broad plantations, 
not only for the rich profits that came that way, but as well 
because of the inherent love of owning land and the social > 
distinction by which it was accompanied. Laurens greatly i 
increased his landed property until he came to own many 
thousands of acres in numerous plantations in Georgia and 
South Carolina. The death of Ball left the combined pressure 
of planting and merchandise too heavy upon him. His atten- 
tion was given more and more to his planting interests, and 
about 1764 he began to contract his mercantile operations, 
"resigning the bulk of my commission business," he writes, 
December 14, 1764, to the house of Price, Hest & Head, a firm j 
of ' ' very worthy young men. ' ' Eight days later he writes that 
he reserves only the right to take consignments on commission 
from particular friends. The difficulty in retaining competent 
employees in this period of expanding and profitable industry, 
when bright young men felt strongly the lure of launching into 
commerce or planting on their own account, made the duties 
of the master onerous and hampered his operations. "To 
discharge much business in this country faithfully, " says 
Laurens, "much application and drudgery is necessary; we 
cannot trust any other eyes or judgment but our own in 
every minute article. Negroes are faithless and workmen 
exceedingly careless." He was offered, he wrote in a letter 
of December 22, 1764, "a partnership in the first house in this 
town, where, I may say, we might have carried everything 
before us"; but he was maturing other plans and declined. 
With the growth of his sons grew his desire to go to Europe 
to supervise their education. He continued to contract his 
business; the non-importation association of 1769 loaded 
merchants, particularly the straightforward, with risks and 



70 Life of Henry Laurens 

vexations, and a great personal bereavement decided him 
to consummate at once the plans for educating his boys. May 
22, 1770, his faithful wife died, leaving him the care of five 
children, the youngest a babe of a few weeks, for whose life 
the mother yielded hers.^ The rearing and education of his 
children now became the chief aim of his life and his business 
was accordingly soon brought to a close. 

Beginning with the summer of 1747, his life as an independ- 
ent business man had extended over twenty- three years. For 
the first year he had operated alone; for the fourteen years 
from 1748 to 1762 he was in partnership with George Austin, 
and for the latter part of this time with George Appleby also. 
During the eight years from 1762 to 1770 he was again without 
a partner, though soon, as we saw, invited to join the first 
house in the province.^ 

While Laurens was a great merchant, he was something 
more. Though keenly engaged in business, he looked upon 
public affairs, as was the wholesome custom with so many of 
the best men of the place and times, as almost as vitally a 
part of his life as his own private concerns. In the Indian war 
of 1 761, the busy merchant, in the full tide of his wealth- 
getting, accepted a commission, went scurrying over North 
and South Carolina collecting recruits, and marched into the 
Appalachian Mountains in the service of the public. The 
Charleston Library Society, the South Carolina Society, 
church affairs, and doubtless many other matters of the com- 
mon good enlisted his interest. He had become also a man 
of considerable literary culture. The titles of the works lent 
to one of his overseers testifies to the broad and virile character 
of his reading. The conversation of this forceful, cultivated 

' Mary Eleanor, bom April 27, the future wife of Governor Charles 
Pinckney. 

^ Mr. A. S. SaUey, Jr., tells me that he has the impression that Laurens 
at about this period formed a partnership with his brother and John Lewis 
Gervais. Laurens bought land with Gervais and others, but I find nothing 
to indicate that he was ever a member of any formal partnerships except 
as noted in the text. I know nothing of who was the "Company" in the 
firm of "James Laurens & Company," whose advertisements I notice in 
the Gazette during 1762. 



1 



Family Life and Traits of Character 71 

man of affairs was said to be ftill of vivacity and charm. A 
mercantile career in such a spirit, with its severe discipline and 
with the broadening influence of foreign correspondence and 
travel, was a valuable schooling for one whose destiny was to 
include the duties of an American statesman and diplomat; 
and when there were added the training involved in the opera- 
tion of several large plantations, inhabited by hundreds of 
himian beings looking to him for direction, and thirteen years ' 
experience in the Commons House of Assembly during the 
most active period of its struggle for self-government, we have 
one of the best preparations imaginable for the wise handling 
of public affairs in a large and responsible way. There can be 
no doubt that if the Continental Congress had contained dur- 
ing the years from 1777 to 1783 more men to whose general 
good intentions there had been added such preparation as this, 
it would have been a great blessing to the country. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, I703-1807 

ONE of the principal sources of wealth to the Carolina 
importing merchant in the eighteenth century was the 
foreign slave trade. The agricultural resources of the new 
country were being rapidly exploited and both indigo and rice 
planters were constantly calling for more labor. In view of 
the misapprehensions sometimes entertained regarding this 
subject, a word of caution may not be out of place against the 
idea that the constant stream of new negroes was needed to 
replace those destroyed by overwork, neglect, or the miasmas 
of the swamps and rice fields. The number of slaves increased 
very rapidly, even during the several periods of the prohibition 
of importation. Governor Glen writes, e. g., in 1749 :^ 

A law having been made in this Pro\dnce whereby a duty was laid on 
Negroes imported here, that it amounted to a prohibition: though since 
the expiration of that law, the war hath hitherto prevented any from being 
imported, I do not find that in about nine years time, our number of negroes 
is diminished, but on the contrary increased : so that from all appearances 
the negroes bred from among our own Stock, wiU continually recruit and 
keep it up, if not enable us to supply the Sugar colonies with a smaU number 
of Negroes. 

It was testified before a committee of the British House of 
Commons that in thirty-eight years a body of Gabriel Man- 
igault's slaves in the South Carolina low country had grown by 

' Carroll's Collections, ii., 224. The statement here quoted was evi- 
dently written in 1749. CarroU, page v of his preface to Vol. i., says that 
the pamphlet "has been attributed to Governor Glen." 

72 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 73 

natural increase from eighty-six to two hundred and seventy, 
only twelve or fourteen old slaves being replaced by purchases, 
certainly a very remarkable percentage.^ Dr. Alexander 
Hewatt, pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Charles- 
ton from 1763 to 1776, who was "bitterly opposed to salvery, "^ 
states that the South Carolina planters treated their slaves 
with greater kindness than those of any other British colony. ^ 

The health of slaves was, of course, given careful attention, 
if on no higher grounds than the owner's interests. The fear- 
ful spread of several diseases, notably venereal diseases and 
pulmonary troubles, among the negroes since emancipation 
is well known. So rare were these complaints under slavery 
that a case is the occasion for remark. In a letter of September 
7, 1 77 1, Laurens's agent tells him that a slave woman is very 
ill with venereal disease, and has been for two years. She was 
given medical attention with the intention of afterwards selling 
her. The same trouble is evidently referred to in a letter to 
an overseer January 7, 1763.'' His letters contain directions 
concerning doctors for his negroes and refer to large quantities 
of sugar, rum, medicine, and delicacies for the sick. Drunken- 
ness was rigidly restrained. Laurens complains during the 
confused months preceding the Revolution of the frequency 
of drunkenness among the slaves which had resulted. 

The steady and rapid increase in the slave population during 
the entire history is of itself sufficient exposure of such charges 
as that the planters preferred to work their negroes to death 
and replace them by new purchases. As a matter of fact the 
colony lived in continual dread at the rapid multiplication of 
the blacks. It would be no more untrue to explain the steady 
stream of immigrants into the United States to-day as neces- 
sary to replace their predecessors who are ground to death in 
our factories and mines. 

^ McCrady's South Carolina under the Royal Government, 403. 

= McCrady. 

3 McCrady's Slavery in the Province of South Carolina, 652. 

* Historical Society of Pennsylvania MSS. Laurens mentions a slave 
woman with " Guinea worm " in her leg, which is " no great injury. " Letter 
of July 13, 1764, in lb. 



74 Life of Henry Laurens 

The eighteenth century and first part of the nineteenth 
in South Carolina formed indeed a period of immense expan- 
sion of agriculture. Improved methods and enlarged opera- 
tions called, as is always the case, for greatly increased numbers 
of laborers. E. g., the cultivation of rice was confined before 
the Revolution to spots which could be irrigated by impounded 
water. About the close of the Revolution the planters began 
the stupendous task of felling the cypress forests and building 
dykes and sluices for irrigating the river low lands through the 
agency of the tides. ^ 

The importation of slaves, both on their own account and 
as agents for the "African merchants" of England, was, as 
private letters and advertisements in the Gazettes show, the 
practice of numbers of Charleston merchants of the highest 
business and social standing. Not only was there no moral 
condemnation of this crime against humanity, but the importer 
was entirely free from the social disadvantage which attaches 
to many occupations whose morality and necessity are univer- 
sally recognized. Gabriel Manigault, the richest merchant, 
says McCrady, of colonial South Carolina would never engage 
in that branch; and as we shall see, as time went on other 
consciences besides his were touched. But these were men 
extraordinary for their kindness of heart and elevation of view, 
while the average man of business regarded such qualms with 
some degree of pity. The Englishmen for whom the Carolina 
factors acted enjoyed an equally high standing in their own 
country as did Sir John Hawkins when he thought it an honor 
to place as the achievement upon his coat of arms a bound 
blackamoor. For instance, Laurens writes his former partner, 
George Appleby, October i8, 1764, that he has recently sold 
a cargo of slaves at better prices than anybody else in the 
colony for Oswald & Company; and on February 6, 1772, he 
writes from England to his brother that the mayor of Bristol 
and this same Richard Oswald, who afterwards represented 
England in the treaty of 1783, are sending slave ships to South 
Carolina. The smaller and poorer factors were excluded from 

' Mrs. Ravenel's Wm. Lowndes, 21-2. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 75 

the profits of this business because of the high credit or bonds 
which were demanded by the owners of such valuable cargoes . 
A load of 200 negroes might be worth $50,000, an item the sale, 
collection, and prompt transmission for which involved large 
responsibility. While drimiming up business on his tour of 
the leading trading towns of southern and central England in 
1749, Laurens assures Mr. James Baradoe, of Liverpool, Jan- 
uary 23 (year N. S.), that if he should determine to send "a 
negro ship to Carolina," as he was considering, "and address 
the same to us, we are ready to give security in England for the 
proceeds of the sales" ; and we find him in 1771 offering John 
Hopton, his former clerk, to go one-half on his surety for 
£10,000 to enable him to get a consignment of slaves. 

Before 1732^ it had been the custom to sell slaves for rice. 
The factor's obligation extended no further than to ship the 
rice to the slave merchant when it should be paid by the pur- 
chaser. After 1732, however, the system was more strict, 
and the factor was bound to remit two-thirds of the amount 
in twelve months after sale and the balance at the end of the 
second year. A factor of Laurens's standing did better than 
this. He writes, May 26, 1755, in offering to take a half share 
in a cargo of slaves: "We sold three cargoes last year after 
the I St of July and every shilling was remitted for them by 
the 1 8th March, and every preceding year has been much the 
same"; — which certainly bears the ring of first-class business 
methods. 

The firm's receipts on ordinary business were 5% commis- 
sion; their terms for the slave trade were 10% of the selling 
price, out of which they paid for coasting fees, loading, etc. 
These we^te the regular current rates. 

From Bristol, on his drumming tour, Laurens writes, Febru- 
ary 21, 1749 (year N. S.), "I have a letter which says that 
negroes would sell at a monstrous price." Thus we see the 
triple combination of greedy self-interest which flooded a fair 
new country, its future yet so free from the curse of early 

' Article in the S. C. Gazette of March 9, 1738, quoted in McCrady, ii., 
183-4. 



76 Life of Henry Laurens 

blunders, with a stream of black laborers who would, before 
the eighteenth century was more than a third spent, cause the 
Carolinians to take thought of the consequences they were 
preparing for their children, if not for themselves. What a 
page of history, this story of men's avarice riveting upon the 
necks of their descendants such heavy chains, to hang there 
for how many centimes after the shackles should be struck 
from their slaves, who shall dare to prophesy! 

The combination of immediate interests was very strong. 
The planter saw in the negro a means, and the only means, by 
which he might quickly become rich — and how good and com- 
fortable it is to be rich and give to one's wife and little ones the 
world's pleasures and bounties, to found a family and leave 
it safely provided for indefinitely into the future ! The colonial 
trader, keen, alert, and still more avid than the planter in the 
race for wealth, saw his opportunity and stimulated the trade 
by exciting the cupidity of the English merchant with stories of 
" a monstrous price, " "cannot supply one- third the demand," 
and "planters full of money. " Laurens writes, May 22, 1755, 
of news that there are twelve sail in the river at James Fort 
(Gambia) and seven or eight expected, and not slaves enough 
for all, and that prices in Carolina are good, "as our indigo 
planters are in great want." In view of such circumstances, 
he predicts at another time "a glorious sale." The English 
merchant, needing only the information and opportunity, had 
the backing of his government, which repeatedly at his demand 
vetoed attempts of the colonies to check the flood when they 
began to perceive its danger. 

Gambia slaves were the favorites. Gold Coast negroes were 
highly valued, ^ and Angola slaves brought very good prices ; 
but those from Calabar, Laurens writes, September 6, 1755, 
"are quite out of repute from numbers in every cargo that 
have been sold with us destroying themselves. ' ' The frequent 
suicides among Calabar slaves indicate the different degrees 
of sensitive and independent spirit among the various negro 

' Laurens to Wragg, Jiily 13, 1764. Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
MSS. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 77 

tribes. Slave suicides sometimes followed inhuman treatment 
or other emotional strain, but rarely. A case of suicide to 
avoid a whipping, in i860, is recorded by an overseer in terms 
suggesting that such instances were expected occasionally.^ 

If the tracing of negro genealogy were possible, it might 
throw interesting light on the tribal ancestry of negro leaders, 
good and bad. So long as the various types remained pure, 
some at least could be readily distinguished, as is proved by the 
owner of a runaway stating, as a means of identification, in an 
advertisement that she was "an Angola girl."^ 

During the same year (1755) Laurens writes that there is a 
ship from Calabar in the harbor with 190 slaves on board un- 
dergoing quarantine, and that if other slaves come in before 
these are released, the owners of the first lot will suffer great 
loss, as people will not have Calabar negroes if they can get any 
other. 

The preference for slaves direct from Africa was strong, as 
those from Spanish colonies incited others to escape, particu- 
larly to Florida, and often those from other English colonies 
had been sent away for crime or sold by their masters on 
account of bad qualities.^ A discriminating tax was accord- 
ingly imposed upon their importation. 

The price of slaves bore a direct relation to the prices of rice 
and indigo, just as to-day wages tend to go up or down with 
the price of the product. Thus we find Laurens writing, June 

' Documentary History of American Industrial Society, ii., 94. I have 
been told of another case by a highly reliable lady acquainted with the 
facts. The work just cited (ii., 127-40) has a minute description of the 
various tribes of negroes and their qualities, written in 1803 by an experi- 
enced British West Indian planter for the guidance of purchasers. Negro 
slaves, Indian slaves, ancient white slaves, and modern white indented 
servants show that the master class has always been ready to use any ma- 
terial that served his purpose. An odd illustration of the same is supplied 
by an advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette of May 10-17, 1740, 
of a runaway, "an East India Man Slave, . . . almost as black as a Negro, 
has long hair." 

^ South Carolina Gazette, Aug. 8-16, 1740. 

3 £. g., in 1822, twenty-two slaves were ordered to be sent from the State 
of South Carolina for complicity in the Vesey plot and the masters of nine 
more were recommended by the court to take the same course. 



78 Life of Henry Laurens 

28, 1755, that the indigo planters made such demand that on 
"the 24th current" we sold a great many men at £40 sterling 
and a few at £290 currency — prices that have not been heard 
of for many a day for Angola slaves. On August 30 he writes 
that he had got "£24 sterling round" "for the most mangy 
creattires that were ever seen." Some new slaves sold that 
year for £300 currency, and even as high as £45, i. e., £315. '. ) 
currency. Notice accordingly that he tells us that indigo at 
this time was some days selling at a milled dollar a pound, 
which was considered a very high price. ^ The prices of slaves 
in 1755 were good in comparison with the past; but they 
continued steadily to rise and were never higher than imme- 
diately before the War of Secession. Laurens speaks in 1755 
•^ of selling two in Georgetown for £570 currency, i. e., aftHe' 
rate of £285 a piece; but he thinks this is too high. In June 
of the same year he writes, "We sold the good men at £270 
and £280, and two so high as £290." They "will average 
upwards of £33 sterling." Of another cargo of 243, he says, 
June 24, 1755, that it will foot up £57,656 currency, an average, 
he states, of £33, 17s. id.^ He states about the same time 
that good slaves were selling at £45 sterling. The slave trade 
was very brisk at this time, Laurens's letters being full of it. 
Austin & Laurens were unable to supply one-third the demand 
of their customers. The average price for a lot (young boys 
and oldish men included), June, 1764, was £315 to £325 cur- 
rency, and a little later a cargo, not the best, "averaged £39- 
19/stg. a (@?) 721 per ct. Exchange" {i. e., £287 currency). 
For a fine fellow fresh from Africa Laurens paid about April 
17, 1764, £320 currency. July, 1765, new Gold Coast women 
brought £240-£250 currency a head, and new slave men (tribe 
not stated) £303 a head. ^ In 1 768 ' ' common plantation slaves, 
likely and young, sold . . . from £450 to £550 currency." 

' Letter of July 4, 1755. 

' In a later letter he says £57,556, or an average of £33 15s. 6d. sterling. I 
The figures in the text would indicate that the exact ratio of currency to ' 
sterling at that time was 701 to 100; those in this note, 700.8 to 100. 

3 Laurens to Joseph Brown, June 28 and 29, 1764; to Stuart, September 
13, 1764; to EUas Ball, July 15, 1765, and to Joseph Brown, July 24, 1765, 
all in Historical Society of Pennsylvania MSS. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 79 

After being disposed of in "the negro yard, " they might be 
taken direct to the plantation of the purchaser or might be 
traded in for profit, as it appears that this feature of the slave 
economy was early developed, and as might have been expected, 
its cruelty also came into early evidence.^ On being sent to 
their permanent abodes, they were given names, frequently 
high-sounding ones, like puppies or colts. E.g., Laurens sends 
eleven up to Mepkin plantation with the names Othello, 
Goodson, Tully, Mentor, Valerius, Claudius, Juliet, Lavinia, 
Rachael, Matty, and Melissa.^ 

The horrible cruelty involved in transporting the slaves from 
Africa has often been described. Under the best captains it 
involved a brutality which no civilized nation would tolerate 
to-day; but these facts made little appeal to eighteenth century 
consciences and led few indeed of the after purchasers to con- 
sider that any of the responsibility reached to them. When 
the smallpox, fever, or dysentery broke out, as they sometimes 
did, on the little vessels with their 200 to 250 black prisoners, 
each wedged into a space narrower than a coffin^ below a 
three- or four-foot ceiling and slimy with the excrements of 
nature and disease, the fetid vapors rising visibly through 
cracks in the deck, the loathsome agony might have supplied 
Dante with material for a cycle of the Inferno. The smallpox 
"was imported in a ship from Guinea" in 1738.'' It was 
carried both into the town and country by the infected negroes 
and made such fearful ravages "that there were not sufficient 
number of persons in health to attend to the sick, and many 
persons perished from neglect and want. ' ' How soon and how 

' " I have been largely concerned in the African trade. I quitted the 
profits arising from that gainful branch principally because of many acts 
from the masters and others concerned towards the wretched negroes from 
the time of purchasing to that of selling them again." — Laurens to William 
Fisher, November 9, 1768. 

^ Letter to overseer, June 11, 1764, in Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
MSS. 

3 This expression and the other details are taken from the testimony in a 
Parliamentary investigation quoted in a charge to the Grand Jury by Judge 
Story. Cf. Story's Life of Judge Story, L, 334, passim. 

* McCrady's South Carolina under the Royal Government, 180, 423. 



8o Life of Henry Laurens 

fearfully the negro, whom his vendors wished to regard as 
merely an economic commodity, was refusing to confine him- 
self to this and was beginning to inflict his long revenge! 
Laurens speaking in 1755 of Calabar slaves then in the harbor 
says, "these also have the same distemper" (smallpox), but 
it does not appear to have spread to the shore. A slave ship 
in the harbor with smallpox on board and bound from Jamaica 
to Georgia, is mentioned in the South Carolina Gazette of 
March 13-20, 1755, whether the same or not I have not in- 
quired. In January, 1763, the disease was spreading danger- 
ously around Charleston and up the river. ^ 

Slaves were taxed along with land and merchandise in the 
ordinary internal tax bills, but without any intention of dis- 
crimination or repression. From an early date there was also 
a port duty, but this generally was only for revenue and was so 
low as to exercise no restriction. On four or five occasions, 
however, during the colonial period prohibition was enacted : 
during the years 1717-19, 1741-4, 1746-9 (?), and 1766-8, 
under the guise of a prohibitive tax, and in 1769-70 by the 
non-importation association; and the Commons House of As- 
sembly unsuccessfully attempted a prohibitive tax also in 1 761 . ' 
The rest of the time the trade was open under moderate 
revenue duties. The history of these enactments is as follows : 

In 1703, as part of the general duty law which was to remain 
in force for two years for paying the expenses of the St. 
Augustine expedition, a tax of los. sterling was imposed upon 
all negro slaves direct from Africa, children under eight years 
old excepted, and twice that amount on those imported from 
any other place. ^ The next year this act was extended to 
May 10, 1707, to pay for fortifications, ministers' salaries, etc* 
The duties continued on a moderate revenue basis for almost 

^Laurens to James Lawrence, Jan. 7, 1763, in Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania MSS. 

' For citations of statutes see long note below. There is nothing to 
indicate that the tax of 1 746-9 was vetoed, but circumstances which will be 
noted a few pages further on surroxmd this case with some difficulty. On 
the 1 76 1 case and one said, I believe erroneously, to have occurred in 1760, 
see below, p. 84, n. i. ' S. C. Stat, at Large, ii., 201. '' Ih., 247. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 8i 

forty years, except for the prohibitive duty of £40 currency 
during 171 7- 19. Ini7i9 the duty was placed at £10 currency 
with the mild hope of discouraging importations, but the un- 
checked decline during the next fifteen years in the value of the 
colonial paper money robbed this of any effect and only re- 
sulted in a comfortable revenue. A heavy discrimination was 
assessed against negroes from other colonies, as it was found 
that such were often sold away because of crime or worthless- 
ness, but to the laborer straight from Africa no objection was 
interposed.^ 

^ The details of import duties on negroes from 1707 to 1740 are as follows: 
July 12, 1707, an act, the original of which is lost, was passed "to con- 
tinue the imposition on Hquors, &c. " (lb., 308) for a period of four years, 
thus carrying it up to the summer of 1711, when an additional duty was 
imposed. The duty act was continued successively to the summer of 
1 716, thus bringing the comparatively low rates down to that date. (lb., 
354; iii., 66). 

June 30, 1 716, was passed a new act which increased the rate considerably. 
It must be remembered, however, that the duties were now assessed in 
"currency." This colonial paper remained equal to sterKng for about 
four years after its first issue in 1703 but afterwards depreciated rapidly, 
and by the '30's had about settled at its permanent level of about 7 to i. 
By the act of 17 16, on all slaves direct from Africa who had reached ten 
years of age a duty of £3 currency was charged; but if they had been "in 
any of the colonies of North America" for five months, the rate was to be 
£30. This law was to be of force for three years and, as was generally the 
case, until the end of the next session of the Assembly. (lb., 651.) In 
December, 17 17, to meet extraordinary military expenses, many additional 
temporary duties were imposed, the duty on slaves over ten years old being 
increased by £7. (lb., iii., 28-30.) The same day there was passed an 
act intended to check the influx of negroes by imposing, from that day, 
for four years and until the end of the next session of the Assembly, an addi - 
tional duty of £40 currency on slaves of all ages. (lb., vii., 370.) These 
laws of 1 7 16 and 171 7 remained in force until repealed by the act of March 
20, 1719 (yr. N. S.), which revised the entire duty system, and repealed 
the previously existing schedules, naming the various acts specifically from 
1703 down. (7i., iii., 65.) By the law of 1 719 negroes direct from Africa, 
unless under ten years old, were taxed £10, and all who had been six months 
in the plantations, £30. Notice, however, that the great fall in the value 
of paper money, in which taxes were paid, discotmted the apparent increase 
in the rate. In 1734 currency was worth only one-fifth what it had been 
twenty-one years before. (So stated the Statutes at Large, South Carolina , 
6 



82 Life of Henry Laurens 

September 9, 1739, South Carolina received the first tragic 
warning of the perils and problems which her inconsiderate 
grasping for cheap labor was creating and in her terror she 
called a brief pause — a very brief pause — in the headlong 
Africanization of her population. On that date there was an 
insurrection of negroes near Charleston in which upwards of 
twenty white persons were killed. In the alarm lest the great 
number of negroes should lead to a fearful massacre, the 
Assembly on April 5, 1740 (O.S.), in the extensive general duty 
law then enacted for five years, continued the old duty of £10 
on all negroes four feet, two inches in height, and £5 and £23^ 
respectively on smaller ones for fifteen months (sucking 
children excepted, as usual), and for three years, beginning 
July 5, 1741 (O.S.), a duty of £100, £50, and £25, according to 
size. This was intended to be prohibitory, and in fact was.^ 

iii., 377.) This act of 1719 was disallowed by the Lords Proprietors and 
constituted one of the immediate causes of the Revolution in which their 
government was overthrown. It went into operation nevertheless and 
brought in a fair revenue; for by act of February 12, 1720, the triumphant 
Assembly declared of full force this along with certain other acts disallowed 
by the Proprietors. (Statutes at Large of South Carolina, iii., 103. See 
also lb., 149 et seq., the act of September 20, 1721.) All existing duties 
were superseded by an elaborate act passed for two years, September 21, 
1 72 1, which placed a duty of £10 and £5 on all negroes direct from Africa, 
according as they were above or below ten years of age. "Whereas, " says 
this law, "it has proved to the detriment of some of the inhabitants of this 
province who have purchased negroes imported here from the colonies 
in America that they were either transported thence by justice or 
sent off by private persons for their ill behavior or misdemeanors," this 
danger was guarded by raising the duty on negroes who had been six months 
in any other plantation to a well-nigh prohibitive figure. {lb., iii., 159.) 

This act of 1721 was superseded by a new law two years later, though 
the rates on most commodities remained the same. {lb,, iii., 193.) The 
only change in the negro schedtde was the addition of the unheard-of figure 
of £150 on Spanish slaves. The negro duties continued apparently at the 
rates laid in 1723, producing about £8500 currency per annum, luitil the 
autumn of 1739, when the existing law seems to have lapsed, its place 
being taken by the new prohibition policy of 1740. The facts for the ob- 
scure period 1723-39 are to be found by a carefiil examination of the South 
Carolina Statutes at Large, particularly iii., 193, ii., 270, the years 1727- 
30, ii., 334-41. iii-. 301. 

^ lb., iii., 556. In order to avoid the appearance of an import duty, 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 83 

Slaves from other colonies were to pay £50 in addition to the 
above. A new feature, emphasizing the growing fear of a 
preponderating black population, was the provision that the 
proceeds of the negro duty were to be used in aiding poor 
Protestant settlers from Europe, with the aim, the law declared, 
of preserving a proper proportion between the free and slave 
inhabitants. The prohibitive duties expired July 5, 1744, 
but this was of no significance, and was perhaps permitted 
because the outbreak of naval war by Spain and France in 1739 
and 1743 respectively against England rendered the negro 
trade impracticable.^ April 16, 1746, the provisions of 1740 
were revived for five years,* thus putting the negro duties in 
force again, £10 for fifteen months, followed by £100 for three 
years. 

We have already alluded to the eagerness with which negroes 
were imported immediately after the removal of these hin- 
drances of law and war, Laurens stating in England in 1749 
that he had a letter, written evidently in anticipation of the 
reopening of the trade, saying that they would sell at a mon- 
strous price. A ship load from Africa arrived June 5, 1749, 
another in August, and after that they came thick and fast.^ 
The general duty law of 175 1 simply reenacted the £10, £5, and 
£23^ duties, with the £50 additional in discrimination against 
those from a colony; and this remained the law except for 
brief intervals until the Revolution.'' It was under its mild 

which had been objected to by the King on the request of the British mer- 
chants, the burden was laid in the form of a tax of £100, and so on, upon the 
person first purchasing the imported negro. 

* Cf. Governor Glen's statement p. 72 above. 

^ lb., iii., 670. 

3 South Carolina Gazette, July 5-12, 1749, etc. These 1749 arrivals 
indicate that the prohibitory duty reenacted April 16, 1746, expired in the 
summer of 1749 — a supposition which meets the reqtdrements of the dates 
if the renewal of the law of 1740 was to date from 1745, but presents a very 
puzzling contradiction if the renewal dated only from April 16, 1746. 

t Enacted for ten years and until the end of the next session of the Assem- 
bly, the general duty law of 1751 expired with 1761, but was renewed in 
1767 for five years. In 1772 it expired in the legislative deadlock over the 
Wilkes fund, to the great injury of the public interests, since there could 



84 Life of Henry Laurens 

provisions, excellently conceived as a revenue measure, that 
the booming trade of the first great period of slave importation 
flourished from 1750 through 1765. The abounding prosperity 
which resulted could not lull the fears of certain men who 
insisted on looking further into the future, and in 1761 they 
passed through two readings in the Commons an additional 
tax of £70 currency, which seems, however, to have died in 
the Council.^ The agitation continued unabated in the face 
of the expanding settlement of the back country following the 
Indian war of 1761, and was finally successful in 1764 in enact- 
ing that during the three years, 1766, '77 and '78 there should 
be paid a prohibitive additional duty of £100 currency.* 

then be neither internal nor external taxes collected. "And, Mr. Speaker, " 
said Christopher Gadsden on this occasion, "if the Governor and Council 
don't see fit to fall in with us, I say let the general duty law and all go to 
the devil, and we go about our business"; and so it was done. (Josiah 
Quincy, Jr.'s, Journal.) Next to the last act passed under the royal govern- 
ment was one reviving, among many laws, this one for one year. For the 
slave trade after the Revolution see below, pp. 92-3. — Statutes at Large, iii., 
751; iv., 332; South Carolina Gazette, July 6, 1769, quoted by McCrady, 

"m 379- 

' Commons Journal S. C. {MS.) for 1761, pp. 137 and 209. WiUiam 
Burge, Commentaries on Colonial and Foreign Laws (4 vols., London, 1838), 
says, i., 737, n.: "In 1760 South Carolina passed an act to prevent the 
further importation of slaves, but Great Britain disallowed the act, repri- 
manded the Governor for having passed it, and sent a circular to all the 
other governor's prohibiting them from assenting to any similar act." 
Neither Burge nor Bancroft, who relates the same thing, cites any authority. 
I have diligently searched the legislative and executive records of South 
Carolina and find no reference to any such act. 

^ South CaroUna Statutes at Large, iv., 187-9. Cf. the following very 
significant extract from a letter of Laurens to Messrs. Rossel and Gervais, 
September 4, 1764, who were in the Ninety-Six country looking over lands 
from themselves and Laurens. He says that he shall wait awhile before 
taking up his family rights of land: 

"An impoHtic partial act which has been for some time in agitation & 
is at length passed into a law to prohibit the importation of negroes has 
made me the more indifferent about that matter in the present juncture, 
for I am almost certain that if that law is approved of or not repealed in 
Britain, vacant lands wiU abound in the year 1767 more than they do in 
the current year." — Historical Society of Pennsylvania MSS. 

How different Laurens's views became later on this rapid development c- 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 85 

Laurens writes a lively account of the passage of this law 
to his friend George Appleby. ^ He expresses the hope that the 
King will interpose his veto. He himself "spoke boldly 
against it and made use of arguments and introduced proofs 
which could not be controverted. Nevertheless the law being 
artfully introduced did pass, and I may say was crammed 
down in the latter end of the session after other business had 
been rejusted for no other reason but because it was the latter 
end of the session and many members gone home. Our 
once neighbor Brailsford acted two droll parts upon this 
occasion; first in voting and whispering strenuously for the 
bill and afterward when I told him that I hoped that he in- 
tended to sell no more negroes at the crisis,^ he retired from 
the house and withheld his vote, as if his patriotism and his 
interest were in strong debate. He may nevertheless be very 
honest and the error lay in my want of perception. — Mr. 
Smith was its father and carried his point as he generally 
carries all points in which he succeeds; assertions too often 
are substituted by him in place of argument and proof; but 
this must be said for him : that his declarations out of doors and 
in were uniform, " 

Evidently in the eyes of the practical and prosperous Colonel 
Laurens, the majority in the Assembly were a set of ninnies, 
though he is open-minded enough to do justice to Mr. Smith, 
the father of the bill. A very gratifying situation Mr. Ben- 
jamin Smith, representative for St. Philip's Parish, was creat- 
ing for himself, taking his stand in a niche in history as the 
father of the prohibitory bill, though he himself was a mer- 
chant; the same Assistant Judge Smith who helped annul the 
Stamp Act and was found an earnest supporter of schools.* 

"precarious riches" as contrasted with a slower and surer development by 
encouraging the immigration of small white farmers, and on the whole 
subject of slavery, will appear in Chapter XXVI. 

' October i8, 1764. 

' I. e., I understand, just at the last of the open season when the prices 
would be very high. 

3 1 have identified him as Benjamin Smith from the MS. records of the 
Assembly, also from South Carolina Gazette, October 9-16, 1762. 



86 Life of Henry Laurens 

Some three years later, when the close of the period of restric- 
tion was approaching, Laurens writes, January 28, 1768, that 
the day before the motion to continue the prohibition beyond 
1768 was lost. He attributes the enactment of the measure to 
mercenary motives accompanied by misrepresentation and 
insincerity and the refusal to continue it to the same self- 
interested aims. "The folks," he writes, "who played cat 
in pan^ to get the duty laid to suit particular purposes and 
now want to serve the same purposes by taking it off kept out 
of the way — for obvious reasons." It would thus appear 
from Laurens's account that there was not at any time a 
majority in favor of prohibition on its merits, but that some 
financially interested men, by giving their votes in 1764 and 
withholding them in 1768, turned the scale to serve their own 
profits. There seems to be no reason for doubting the correct- 
ness of his explanation. The brief restriction had no percept- 
ible effect in diminishing the proportion of negroes in the 
population. Immediately before and after the closed period 
traders glutted the market, seeking the huge profits so gener- 
ously created for them — an instructive early instance of the 
benefits of a properly manipulated tariff. It will be remem- 
bered that this, like the law of 1740, gave more than a year's 
notice to the planter, the factor and the English "African 
merchant. " Equity and good policy doubtless pled strongly 
for a fair chance for the adjustment of mercantile and agricul- 
tural operations to the new arrangement; but Laurens was 
probably correct in thinking that the greed of certain mer- 
chants played a larger part. During the year 1765, in antici- 
pation of the high profits just before the prohibition, 7184 
were imported, i.e., almost a third as many as in the nine years 
previous.^ As the expiration of the closed season drew near 
the traders again prepared to gorge themselves on the profits 
the law had provided. How inviting was the prospect is 

' "A cat in the pan, a falsehood given out as coming from one who did 
not originate it. " — Century Dictionary. 

' The Gazette for July 6, 1769, gives the importations for 1765 as 6701 ; 
but in a careful review of the period from January i, 1753, to May i, 1773, 
the same paper for May 31, 1773, says 7184. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 87 

suggested by a passage from a letter by Laurens, January 28, 
1768: 

Common plantation slaves, likely and yotmg, sold lately at a very large 
sale from £450 to £550 currency. I gave some time ago for (a forty-five 
or fifty year old man who was good with rice and indigo) £600. . 

Loads were shipped off to Carolina even before the expira- 
tion of the time. Laurens writes, December 24, 1768, a week 
before the hoped-for day, that there were a hundred and fifty 
negroes from the West Indies waiting in the harbor for January 
ist and he expects that there will soon be many more ; and, he 
adds, "The planters are full of money." Many a merchant 
in England and South Carolina "blessed his maw destined to 
that good hour" (an hour some of them had helped to make a 
good one) with as self-satisfied a chuckle as a tariff beneficiary 
playing the same old game in the twentieth century. During 
the first eleven months of the year 1769 the importations 
reached 5438.^ The South Carolina Gazette exerted itself 
against these immense importations. Editor Timothy on 
July 6, 1769, after stating the numbers, remarked in italics: 

" This scarcely needs comment; every man's own mind must 
suggest the consequences of such enormous importations.^^ 

The prevalence of Timothy's view is witnessed by the fact 
that the non-importation association was immediately amended 
so as to forbid the importation of negroes from Africa during 
the year 1770 and of those from other places for the fifteen 
months beginning with October, 1769.^ After the failure of 
the non-importation association movement the flood mounted 
higher than ever, in utter disregard of the repeated warnings 
of Timothy's Gazette or any consideration save that of immedi- 
ate profit. The first five months of 1773 saw the unprece- 
dented number of 11,641. An examination of the records 
since January i, 1753, when the trade was mounting to the 
proportions called for by the rapidly pushing development of 

' Governor Bull's report of December 6, 1769, in Public Records of South 
Carolina, MS., xxxii., 129. The Gazette of May 31, 1773, says 4612 for the 
year 1769. 

" South Carolina Gazette, July 13, 1769. 



88 Life of Henry Laurens 

the colony's resources, down to May 31, 1773, revealed the 
fact that the importations for those twenty fateful years had 
been 55,606/ — another illustration of the destiny-making 
character of the mid-eighteenth century for the political, 
economic, and social life of South Carolina. What the colony 
was made then, the State is to remain essentially for centuries. 
Laurens is found sneering at some who, in 1764, helped to 
impose the three years' prohibition; but his frank acknowledg- 
ment of Smith's sincerity and his sneer, January 28, 1768, at 
those who sought first for restrictions and later for free trade 
for the sake of their own pockets, might indicate a certain 
tolerance towards the idea of prohibition, even though he still 
strongly opposed such a law. Certainly his opinion was 
gradually undergoing a change. As early as March 19, 1763, 
we find him condemning, to his Moravian friend John (after- 
wards Bishop) Ettwein, both the slave trade and slavery, the 
latter particularly in its effect on morals.^ On May 25, 1768, 
he writes that the importation of negroes will reopen in 1769, 
but he is not yet "resolved in my own mind whether to enter 
upon that trade or not. " He had, in fact, dropped out of it 
about 1762 or -3, before compelled by law, on account of the 
cruelties beyond his control which he witnessed. Only once 
that I have discovered did he break his resolution, when in 
1764, he consented after strong pleas, "for some very particu- 
lar considerations," to sell an incoming cargo. ^ No doubt 

' South Carolina Gazette, May 31, 1773. McCrady, ii., 379-81, appears 
to have confused these dates and figures in several instances. It is also 
to be noted that the figures in the Gazette for May 31, 1773, are inconsistent 
with its figures of July 6, 1769, and Btdl's figures of December 6, 1769. 
Probably the editor in his statement of 1769 overlooked some cargoes which 
he included in his more careful review of 1773. Btdl's figures are higher 
than the Gazette's, but as there are several points in favor of Bidl, I con- 
clude that his figures are at least approximately correct. 

^Historical Society of Pennsylvania MSS. 

i Laurens to Martin, June 10 and 27, 1764, and to Wragg, September 19, 
1764, in Historical Society of Pennsylvania MSS., and to Fisher, November 
9, 1768. February 6, 1772, Laurens wrote his brother James from London 
that he was declining offers in the slave trade and that he has already given 
up thousands of pounds which he might have accumulated in that way. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 89 

the unsettling of old opinions and the gradual emergence of 
new in himself and a few others during these years led to 
conversations which would be interesting in the history of 
American thought. The glimpses which we catch show that 
there was more said than has come down to us. The example 
of Laurens's own brother James and of his friend "good old 
Mr. Manigault, " neither of whom would ever engage in the 
traffic, could not have been without effect.^ 

A strong light is thrown upon the common opinion regarding 
slavery by the way in which as bold a man as Laurens shrank 
from the public exposure of his views. In 1769 in a bitter 
controversy in which both contestants did their utmost to 
discredit each other, Egerton Leigh charged Laurens with 
being a self-righteous hypocrite who abandoned the slave 
trade from "goodness of heart, " the basis for which statement 
Leigh not improbably derived from the confidential relations 
in which he had previously stood with his antagonist. ^ Laurens 
replied,^ that he abandoned that branch about six years before, 
in spite of an abundance of the most lucrative offers, because he 
had no partner, business was too heavy, and he was not seeking 
to embrace every gainful occupation, and that the statement 
that he did so from motives of goodness was a falsehood. 

The warmth and the motives with which this charge was 
preferred and the denial made are very expressive of the 
opprobrium which a Charleston merchant, in 1769, would have 
incurred by professing to consider the foreign slave trade an 
immoral or inhuman institution. I think it certain that 
Laurens was led in the ardor of controversy, in circumstances 

' James Laurens writes his brother Henry, July 8, 1773, that he has re- 
ceived very advantageous offers in the Guinea trade, but that, besides the 
risk of taking up a new line, " Be that as it may, I disapprove and wiU have 
no concern in the Guinea trade. You may remember I refused it in the 
year 1767 when you were so kind as to make me an offer of your interest 
in that business, and thank God neither my circumstances or inclination 
make it more necessary to engage in new concerns now." 

* Besides being a friend, Leigh had married the daughter of Laurens's 
sister Mrs. Bremar. 

3 Extracts from the Proceedings of the Court of Vice- Admiralty, 2d edition, 
p. 56. 



90 Life of Henry Laurens 

in which he would be loath to offend the public to which he was 
appealing, to suppress part, if not the essence, of his reasons for 
withdrawing from the trade; for not only does his letter to 
his friend William Fisher, of Philadelphia, November 9, 1768, 
plainly show that goodness of heart did have a great influence 
in his decision, but many other facts point to the same con- 
clusion. In denouncing the treatment of certain Irish immi- 
grants imported into South Carolina by a business man for the 
sake of the bounty, he says : 

If you knew the whole affair, it would make your humanity shudder. I 
have been largely concerned in the African trade. I quitted the profits 
arising from that gainful branch principally because of many acts from the 
masters and others concerned towards the wretched negroes from the time 
of purchasing to that of selling them again, some of which though within 
my knowledge, were tmcontrorolable;^ 

and so on, with an emotion which shows him to have been 
deeply moved by cruelty of any kind. 

In speaking of the same matter to different persons on 
different occasions and from different standpoints, one may 
present various sides of the same thing with varying degrees of 
emphasis on different aspects, without being guilty of decep- 
tion or even of suppression of facts. Doubtless the difficulty 
of doing an extensive business without competent assistance 
and the comfortable feeling of plenty did play their part ; but 
a merchant seeking to lighten his labors would hardly begin by 
dropping his most profitable branch; and it is plain that 
revulsion at the cruelties of the slave trade exercised a strong 
influence, if not the strongest, and in his denial of this in the 
Leigh controversy Laurens falls below his usual frankness 
worse than in any other instance of which I am aware. 

Though Laurens refused after 1762 or -3 to trade in slaves, 
he did not parade his resolution as a virtue in the faces of his 
associates nor even refuse, as late as 1772, to help younger men 
to such engagements and to direct them how to make good 
sales. 

Much has been said regarding the relative guilt of New 

' Letter-book copyist's blunder, doubtless. 



I 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 91 

England and the South in fixing slavery, through the instru- 
mentality of the foreign slave trade, upon the country. The 
men of the eighteenth century, with few exceptions, looked 
upon the traffic as perfectly legitimate, and those who seek 
to shift responsibility from the shoulders of their Southern 
forefathers will discover from the expressions of those whom 
they seek to defend, even at a much later date than that of 
which we are speaking, that they felt no compunctions at doing 
all they could to promote the traffic and would doubtless resent 
the attempt as implying turpitude in what they openly prac- 
ticed. I know nothing definite of the extent to which the New 
England traders pushed their business in South Carolina dur- 
ing the eighteenth century. Laurens wrote in 1763 to Ettwein, 
a firm opponent of slavery, "We see the negro trade much 
promoted of late by our Northern neighbors who formerly 
censured and condemned it. " ^ The traffic, coupled with the 
manufacture of rum for purchasing the negroes, was a vast 
source of wealth and honeycombed New England from a very 
early date far into the nineteenth century. Rhode Island by 
her very laws fostered the business, and many of her "best 
people" were steeped "up to their very mouths " in the hideous 
slough of rum and negro selling.^ The traffic extended from 
New Hampshire to Georgia, and every colony profited by its 
various phases to the extent of its ability. Representing 
South Carolina as the preeminent eighteenth century slave 
market is an exaggeration, as is proved by the number of 
slaves found in 1790 in the four great slave owning states: 
Maryland, 103,036; Virginia, 292,627; North Carolina, 100,- 
572; South Carolina, 107,094. ^ 

The state of opinion in the years following the Revolution 
was the least favorable to the continued growth of slavery 

'Laurens to John (later Bishop) Ettwein, March 19, 1763, in Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania MSS, 

^ Du Bois, 27-38. 

3 "Heads of Families," United States Census, 1790, Volume on Virginia, 8. 
The total population of the four States respectively in 1790 was 319,728; 
747,610; 393,751; 249,073. South Carolina had 1801 free negroes; Vir- 
ginia, over 12,000. 



92 Life of Henry Laurens 

ever seen in South Carolina during the existence of the institu- 
tion. To the strong spirit of philosophical liberalism there 
was added in the years immediately following the war the 
fact that prostrate industry did not call for new laborers. 
Up to 1 8 ID there were many manumissions ; but in this respect 
South Carolina was much behind the other great slaveholding 
States, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.* Importa- 
tions decreased. The number of negroes imported into South 
Carolina in 1783 was only 1003; in 1784, 4434, in 1785, 2768, 
in 1786, 523, a total for the four years of 8737, only 1553 more 
than for 1765 alone, and 2904 less than for the first five months 
of 1773.^ In 1783 a duty of £3 sterling was imposed and in 
1787 the importation of negroes was forbidden. ^ But soon there 
was a shifting of both opinion and interest, the former respond- 
ing to the latter, and, in spite of the opposition of a strong 
minority, on December 17, 1803, the Legislature opened the 
foreign slave trade for the full limit that they were able, i. e- 
for the four years, 1804-7.'' 

This only marked the triumph of a trend of opinion long 
in progress; for some years the illegal traffic, by New Eng- 
land ships, had grown to immense proportions and almost 
scorned concealment.^ During this time when the trade was 
kept open by South Carolina, Rhode Island took a very 
prominent part. In 1820 Senator William Smith, of South 
Carolina, secured through the Collector of the Port of 

' "Heads of FamiKes, " United States Census of 1790, Virginia, 8. 

3 An unsigned paper in the Laurens MSS. in the Long Island Historical 
Society marked "General Abstract of the Debt of the State of South 
Carolina from January 1783 to January 1787." 

3 Statutes at Large, v., 38, and vii., 430. On the condition of opinion, 
see The South in the Building of the Nation, ii., 469. 

•* lb., vii., 449-51; Von Hoist, i., 317. As an index of opinion, we may 
notice the fact that in 1856 Governor Adams, in his message to the Legisla- 
ture, strongly urged the reopening of the foreign slave trade by Congress, 
and the special committee of six to whom the matter was referred approved 
the plan by five to one, J. Johnson Pettigrew submitting a minority report 
to the contrary. The movement was widespread throughout the South. — 
Du Bois, 176-8. 

s Du Bois, 85-6. 



Slave Trade in South Carolina 93 

Charleston a list of every slaver entering that port during 
those years, with the residence of the owners of both ship 
and cargo and the numbers of slaves imported.^ Of the 202 
vessels, 61 hailed from Charleston, 59 from Rhode Island, one 
from Massachusetts and Connecticut each, and 70 from Great 
Britain. Of the consignees, ten were natives of France; 
thirteen of Charleston; eighty-eight of Rhode Island, and 
ninety-one of Great Britain, and this is the matter of real 
significance; for the port from which a ship hails is no neces- 
sary indication of the residence or nativity of her owner. Of 
the 39,075 slaves imported during the four years, 21,027 came 
in British and French vessels'* and 18,048 in American. Of 
those imported in American vessels, 5717 came in Charleston 
vessels but were imported by foreigners ; 2006 in Charleston 
vessels and imported by native South Carolinians; 8238 in 
Rhode Island vessels, and 450 in the two vessels from Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut. 

After 1807 the Rhode Island trader kept up his activities. 
W. W. Story in his life of his father, Judge Joseph Story, says, 
speaking of the year 18 19: 

Slavery itself had hardly disappeared from New England, and the slave 
trade was winked at. A man might still hold position in society and claim 
consideration as a gentleman, nay, as a Christian, while his ships were 
freighted with htiman cargoes, and his commerce was in the blood and pain 
of his fellow creatures. ... It is notorious that many large fortunes 
there (Rhode Island) and elsewhere were blood money of the slave trade, 
and owed their existence to the wretched cargoes that survived the 
horrors of the middle passage 3, 

Judge Story, in a charge delivered to the Federal Grand Jury 
of the United States Circuit Court in Boston, October, 1819, 

^ Annals of Congress, Sixteenth Congress, Second session, 1 820-1, pp. 
73-7- The speech was published in pamphlet form, from which the statistics 
were copied into the Charleston Year Book for 1880, pp. 258-63, where an 
error in the pamphlet of 300 too Uttle for the slaves sent in by British 
vessels is reproduced. Eighty slaves which should be assigned to Rhode 
Island are left unassigned in the Annals of Congress. 

' French only about 1000. 

3 Story's Life of Story, i., 335-6; cited in General Henry R. Jackson's 
pamphlet, The Wanderer Case, p. 28. 



94 Life of Henry Laurens 

denounced the traffic being carried on from his district in New 
England; but his utterances were almost universally dis- 
approved. "The newspapers of the day publicly denounced 
my father, " says Mr. Story, "and one among them in Boston 
said that any judge who would deliver such a charge ought to 
be 'hurled from the bench.'" It is unnecessary to say that 
not one attempt was made by grand jury or public prosecutor 
to carry out his recommendations.^ 

These facts are not introduced to direct opprobrium toward 
any persons or sections, but in order that the reader may bear 
in mind the historic setting of the foreign slave trade. That it 
was a hideous and cruel thing is universally admitted; any 
man who to-day should be found in any way concerned in it 
would forfeit his standing among decent people (unless he had 
become very rich at it). But we must judge the men of the 
eighteenth century with some reference to the standards then 
current among respectable people. It is not quite true to say 
that "they lived up to their hghts." No generation of men 
has fully done that. There have never been wanting at least 
the prudential warnings of a Peter Timothy, the silent condem- 
nation of a Gabriel Manigault, or for long the clear and unequi- 
vocal voice of a John Wesley to declare that slavery was the 
sum of all villainies. But such were few indeed, and when 
Laurens in about 1763 resolved to drop the traffic, he took 
ground distinctly in advance of his times. ^ 

' Story's Story, i., 347-8. 

* Laurens said in 1769 that he had abandoned the slave trade about six 
years ago. See pp. 67, 88, and 89. 



CHAPTER VII 

EARLY PUBLIC LIFE AND THE CHEROKEE WAR, I757-6I 

LAURENS was first elected to the Commons House of 
Assembly in 1757 and continued to be reelected, one 
occasion excepted, until the Revolution.^ He was now a 
prosperous young business man of thirty-three. His political 
opinions before this we find marked by the same qualities 
which were to mark them to the end : a reasonable conserva- 
tism and a comprehensive patriotism which looked beyond any 
"partial benefit" to any one section. As a rather sage youth 
of twenty- three he wrote to his friend Rev. St. John: "The 
people of this province are generally very fickle, especially 
as to Governors spiritual or temporal, soon pleased and soon 
disgusted."^ The common danger from the French and 
Indian war, which drew from Franklin his Albany plan for 
permanent union, made the same appeal to Laurens as to the 
most statesmanlike minds throughout America. This con- 
tinental breadth and liberality of view characterized him from 
first to last, but he was always conscious of the difficulties 
which colonial particularism interposed. He wrote, August 
20, 1755: 

Were the several Provinces to unite their strength, we shotdd be able to 
do anything; but this depends upon such a diversity of opinions as the 
several Assemblies consist of that we shall despair of seeing a hearty 
coalition untUl an apparent danger of the whole shall drive them to the 
necessity of it. 

' MS. Journals of the House, roUs; Laurens's own statement in the Tower 
of London. When elected in 1773 he resigned, because of uncertainty as 
to when he should return from England, where he then was. 

' Laurens to vSt. John, November 11, 1747. 

95 



96 Life of Henry Laurens 

We recall that the Commons House was in 1756 just gaining 
the monopoly of the correspondence with the colonial agent 
and vindicating its power to control his election. Laurens's 
sympathies in this were with the popular party; for we find 
him writing in 1755 that he hopes "we shall in all probability 
get the better of the Council." They had made good their 
power of controUing money bills, and so firmly were they 
determined as the representatives of a free people practically 
to govern themselves in all respects that the more aggressive 
element were raising the question whether the Council was in 
any sense a house of the Legislature. The spirit of self-reliance 
and self-government was not to undergo any essential change ; 
but many new and important occasions for its exercise were 
to arise during the next fifteen years. In becoming a member 
of this body Laurens entered one of the best schools then in the 
world in the theory and practice of government. 

Entering public Hf e during the French and Indian war, whose 
importance and significance he so well understood, before it 
was over Laurens gave his services in the field as Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the regiment which South Carolina raised to co- 
operate with the British regular troops against the Cherokees. 
The earnestness which he manifested by going as far as into 
North Carolina with subordinate officers in recruiting men 
continued to the end of a dangerous and trying campaign.^ 

South CaroHna's relations with her most powerful Indian 
neighbors, the Cherokees, were for a long while peaceful. 
So long as the whites had remained confined to the coastal 
plain they supplied the Indians with trade and protection in 
their unmolested homes seventy-five or a hundred miles to 
the northwest. Hence boundary or other disputes were not 
likely to arise. A sort of treaty or alliance was formed by 
Governor Nicholson with the Cherokees in 1721, by which it 
was agreed that the two races should not intrude upon each 
other; but we are imable to locate where, according to Hewatt 
writing in 1779, he "marked the boundaries of the lands be- 
tween them and the English settlers," or indeed to feel certain 

' South Carolina Gazette, February 7, 1761. 



Early Public Life and the Cherokee War 97 

that he established any definite line at all. In 1730 a number 
of Cherokee chiefs went to England and formed a treaty with 
the King which secured peace for many years, but it contained 
no grant of land and defined no boundary. The nearest 
approach to anything of this kind was that they assured 
George III. that his people might settle near the Indians with- 
out fear of molestation.^ The warriors, immensely impressed 
with the splendor and power which they witnessed in Lon- 
don and not knowing the white man as well as they came 
to know him later, were very docile and faithfully bound 
one end of the chain of friendship to the breast of King 

' Logan, i., 394; McCrady, ii., 102. S. C. records omit text of 1730 treaty. 

I am indebted to Professor W. W. Carson for the following interesting 
information on the mysterious lost "second volume" of Logan's History 
of Upper South Carolina, Logan's failure to complete which is a very 
serious loss to students of the State's history: 

Vol. 16 Sumter MSS. "A large portion of this volume consists of a 
transcript of materials collected by Dr. John H. Logan, of which volume i. 
was published in 1859. Draper made a careful copy of at least most of 
Logan's materials." 

This is a quotation from the classified catalogue of the Draper MSS. in 
Wisconsin Historical Society Library. At the bottom of the page I find 
the following note: 

"The statement has frequently been made, that this is the original MS. 
copy for Logan's projected second volume. It is, however, but Draper's 
transcript of Logan's undigested data for the book, the completion of the 
work having been interrupted by the War of Secession. From the note 
appended to this transcript, we learn that about 1875-8, whUe collecting 
materials for his King's Mountain, Draper visited Greenwood, S. C, then 
the home of Logan. The latter appears to have lent the MS. to Draper, who 
later returned it to Dr. E. R. Calhoun, of Greenwood, father-in-law of 
Logan. Much curiosity has ever since been exhibited by South Carolina 
historians as to the whereabouts of the MS. of Logan's second volume, which 
was reported to have been prepared for the press, and it has been assumed 
that this MS. came into Draper's possession. We incHne to the belief, 
however, that such was not the fact — that Draper saw only the raw material 
from which he made these excerpts, and that Logan proceeded no further 
with his enterprise." — Wisconsin Hist. Society List of Manuscripts, p. 76; 
edited by R. G. Thwaites. 

Thus we see that, instead of Draper's having wrongfully dispossessed 
South Carolina of this valuable "second volimie," as is very commonly 
supposed, we are indebted to him for preserving through his transcript 
all of which we possess. 
7 



98 Life of Henry Laurens 

George and the other to that of their chief in the far away 
Appalachians. 

As the population of South Carolina expanded, the encroach- 
ments of the settlers tended to marauding and discontent; 
the cheating and lewdness of the white traders offended the 
Indians' interest and jealousy, and the French from the 
Mississippi were actively inflaming them against the English. 
The provincial government, generally speaking, handled the 
situation unskillfuUy. A good move, however, was the pur- 
chase by Governor Glen in 1753 of land for a fort, which was 
given the name of Fort Prince George, in the southwestern 
part of Pickens County in the fork of Six Mile Creek and Keo- 
wee River and a strip as broad as the fort from there to the Long 
Canes in Abbeville County. ' The Indians evidently recog- 
nized the white man's tenure, based on mere occupancy, as 
extending up to Long Canes ; but apparently they knew of no 
separating line running entirely across the province. The 
provincial government, aided by one hundred men sent by Vir- 
ginia, built as the farthest outpost Fort Loudon on the Little 
Tennessee in the eastern part of the State of Tennessee, to serve 
the double purpose of protecting the Cherokees against their 
enemies and of holding the Cherokees themselves in check." 

'Logan, i., 496; Maps in Drayton; United States Geological Survey 
maps, Pickens quadrangle. The old errors about a boundary line in 1721 
and the cession of the northwestern part of the province in 1753 are repeated 
in the Bureau of Ethnology, Eighteenth Annual Report, Pt. II., p. 633, 
this part of the account appearing to rest on second hand authorities. The 
large map of Cherokee land cessions in the entire country occupied by them 
accompanying the Fifth Annual Report (1883-4), contains the same errors, 
as does the text, 130 and 144-5. It is impossible to interpret the treaty of 
1753 (Hewatt's statement of the date of 1755, largely followed by others, 
is erroneous) as granting anything except the site of the fort and the right 
of way to it without violently twisting its meaning ; and even this twisting 
only makes it include a small strip along the northern course of the Savannah. 
Cf. Logan, i., 500-5 and 512. See Appendix IV of this book. 

^ Logan, i., 512. The fort was named for Lord Loudon, the Virginia 
Governor and incompetent commander of all His Majesty's forces in 
America. It was situated on the southern side of the Little Tennessee a short 
distance above where it receives the Telhco River from the south, in the 
present Monroe County, and not at the site of the present town of Loudon. 



Early Public Life and the Cherokee War 99 

Atrocious murders by the Indians nevertheless continued. A 
combination of skill and firmness was demanded of which the 
Governor did not show himself possessed, and in the midst of 
an ill-planned expedition he was recalled by the arrival of his 
successor Lyttleton in June, 1756. 

The whites had assumed that the treaty of 1753 gave them 
the right to settle anywhere in the northwest up to Fort Prince 
George. The irritation of the savages finally burst all bounds 
at the treatment of some of their warriors on their return from 
aiding the British in the Fort Duquesne expedition in 1758. 
One group took twenty-two scalps as they passed through 
North Carolina and later others who had lost their horses 
supplied themselves after their own fashion in Virginia, for 
which the whites killed without discrimination some ten or 
twelve of the braves. Outraged at such ingratitude in those 
in whose defense they had been fighting, the young warriors, 
ready enough at all times for violence, retaliated by promiscu- 
ous murders along the frontier. This was the difficult situa- 
tion which faced Governor Lyttleton. The older chiefs 
desired to avoid war and sent a delegation of about twenty- 
five of their number to Charleston to dehver and hear "talks. " 
Their attitude did not prove satisfactory to the Governor, and, 
contrary to the advice of William Bull, soon to be his successor, 
he gave them a harsh and threatening answer. Still, since 
they had come claiming his promise of protection, he said, 
they should have it. 

Governor Lyttleton set out October 29, 1759, in force to 
execute his threatened chastisement. The chiefs marched 
practically as prisoners and on their arrival at Fort Prince 
George were actually thrown into confinement, in violation 
of the Governor's plighted word. The impetuous gentleman, 
new to the situation, found himself unprepared to execute his 
threats and accordingly fell back upon negotiation, a policy 

See Plates CLXI and CLXII, Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology, Part II. Logan, i., 513 and note, fixes it apparently 
seven miles above the Tellico, on the authority of South Carolina records. 
The bureau of Ethnology map, following apparently Ramsey of Tennessee, 
places it one mile, and Timberlake's map a half mile, above the Tellico. 



100 Life of Henry Laurens 

which he might at first have pursued with dignity and success, 
but which was now to all intents and purposes a confession of 
helplessness. In December, 1759, a treaty was patched up in 
a manner discreditable to the Governor's word of honor, to 
the effect that the twenty-six chiefs then in the fort, in viola- 
tion of the pledge given personally to all but a few of them, 
should remain imprisoned until twenty-six murderers whom 
he demanded should be deHvered in their stead. Hardly 
had the salutes which hailed the Governor's empty triumph 
on his return to Charleston died away when over a dozen 
murders were perpetrated under the very shadow of Fort Prince 
George, and Occonostota, one of the wronged chiefs who had 
secured his liberation, entrapped and murdered the comman- 
der. The garrison retaliated by butchering the entire body 
of imprisoned chiefs. Instantly the frontier from Abbeville 
to York was swept with the horrors of savage war. In the 
Calhoun party alone, fleeing towards Augusta, on the ist 
of February, 1760, some fifty lost their lives, among them the 
grandmother of John C. Calhoun. On April 4th Governor 
Lyttleton sailed away to undertake the government of Ja- 
maica and left men better acquainted with Indian affairs to 
weather the storm which his precipitancy, blundering, and per- 
fidy had done so much to bring down upon the unprotected 
settlers. 

A force of 1200 regulars sent from the north by General 
Amherst — the first that had ever served in South Carolina — 
arrived April ist. These, supplemented by about an equal 
body of provincials, proceeded with admirable celerity under 
Colonel Archibald Montgomery to the valley of the Keowee 
River. The expedition, after destroying the villages there, 
pressed on under great hardships into the fastnesses of the 
high mountains. Passing over the Chattooga Ridge and 
Chattooga River, they ascended the valley of War Woman 
Creek in the extreme northeast of Georgia, and crossing the 
Blue Ridge at or near Rabun Gap, descended into the upper 
valley of the Little Tennessee. As the army struggled along 
the river bank eight miles to the south of the present town 
of Franklin in Macon County, N. C, a mile and a half below 



Early Public Life and the Cherokee War loi 

Smith's Bridge/ through a thicket almost impenetrable to 
man, the Indians opened fire from a well chosen ambush. The 
battle raged for an hour ere the savages were dislodged and 
fled farther into the mountain gorges to prepare a new attack. 

Colonel Montgomery thought it imprudent to follow, and 
besides, his orders required him to be back in New York for 
the coming campaign against Canada. He reembarked at 
Charleston in August. Hardly was he out of the mountains 
when the enraged savages proceeded to vengeance. Fort 
Loudon on the Little Tennessee, with its inmates almost 
starved, was taken and twenty-seven of the garrison, the 
exact number of the hostages exacted by Governor Lyttleton 
and later butchered in Fort Prince George, were massacred.^ 
The English had bungled the matter from Governor Glen's 
failure to improve the opportunity of 1753, on through the 
treachery and precipitancy of Lyttleton and the incomplete 
action of Montgomery. After painful labor, vast expense and 
lamentable bloodshed, the frontier was in a worse condition 
than ever and the work of crushing the Cherokees was as far 
from being accomplished as before the first shot was fired. 

Canada having been now reduced. General Amherst again 
sent a force of regulars to the aid of the colony. These, with 
the four Highland companies of Royal Scots left in South 
Carolina after the previous year's expedition, a number of 
Indian allies and a South Carolina regiment raised for the 
occasion, made a total of about 2600. Ramsay, Bancroft, and 
McCrady all call attention to the remarkable number of men 
destined to win distinction in the Revolution who began their 
military careers in this campaign. Thomas Middleton was 
Colonel; Henry Laurens Lieutenant-Colonel; John Moultrie 

' I have Professor W. W. Carson to thank for locating, from material in 
the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the exact point upon the 
river. 

' McCrady's South Carolina under the Royal Government, 347 ; Ban- 
croft, iv., 355. I caimot explain the discrepancy of one or two chiefs 
massacred in Fort Prince George and the whites killed in retaliation. I 
caimot say whether the Indians misunderstood the number or the writers 
misstate it. 



I02 Life of Henry Laurens 

Major, and William Moultrie, Francis Marion, Isaac Huger, 
Andrew Pickens, and other Revolutionary heroes less distin- 
guished served in other positions. 

June 7, 1 761, the force, having rested at Fort Prince George, 
struck out by Montgomery's route of the year before for the 
country back of the Blue Ridge, where the Indians had taken 
refuge. Colonel Grant came upon them in a defile two miles 
south of the point at which Montgomery had been attacked.* 
After a fierce battle of three hours, marked by considerable 
skill and endurance on both sides, the Indians fied. Grant 
pushed on into their country and destroyed every village in the 
region of the upper waters of the Little Tennessee. After 
thirty days of such work in such a country, the army, with 
feet and legs bruised and "mangled"^ returned exhausted to 
Fort Prince George. This campaign marks the end of the 
Cherokee power. The once mighty nation, prepared by drink 
and moral degeneracy for their fall,^ were so thoroughly 
crushed that only once more did the white man need to strike 
to reduce their remnants to a position of servile dependency. 
Their leading chief, AttakuUakuUa, appeared to sue for peace. 
Lieutenant-Governor Bull, who now held the government, 
gladly did what was possible to "brighten the chain" and 
"straighten the path," and the Indian wars were at an end 
until the Revolution.'* 

A definite boundary was now for the first time apparently 
drawn between the Cherokees and the whites. This is the line 
still forming the eastern boundary of Greenville (except where 
tilted to the east on Laurens) and the southeastern boundary 
of Anderson. After a number of proposals and a temporary 
line established by the royal government, this was incorporated 
into the line permanently estabhshed, 1768-70, from the head 
of the Mohawk in New York almost to Mobile, s The shat- 

» Bancroft, iv., 424. The map in Drayton's Memoirs may be consulted, 
but the proportions are so bad as to render it of little service. 

» Ramsay. ^ Cf. Logan. ^ McCrady, ii., 352. 

s Max Farrand: The Indian Boundary Line (with map), Amer. Hist. 
Rev., X., 782-91. See note at end of chapter for later history of the Chero- 
kees in South Carolina and their present residence in North Carolina. 



Early Public Life and the Cherokee War 103 

tered Indian forces were immediately confronted by a powerful 
force from Virginia, marching down the Holston River from 
the northeast, with whom in November they also concluded a 
peace. ^ 

Egerton Leigh in 1769 sneered at Laurens as having cut 
a ridiculous figure as a soldier in the Indian war. Laurens 
replied^ that his conduct won the approbation of Lieutenant- 
Governor Bull, Colonel Grant, and even Colonel Middleton, 
with whom he differed so widely. In a bitter controversy 
between Laurens and Gadsden in which the campaign was 
threshed out by both, the plain spoken, hard hitting Gadsden 
makes no slurs upon Laurens's military record. Judge Leigh 
was not only a rather indiscreet and cowardly person, but 
also about as despicable a creature as at that time breathed 
the air of South Carolina, and I attach no value to his sneer, 
for which he offers no support. ^ Doubtless the father of 

^ Memoir of Lieutenant Timberlake, 1765, page 10. I am indebted to 
Prof. W. W. Carson for the information regarding the Virginians, he having 
supplied the account cited here. 

^ Extracts from the Court of Vice-Admiralty, 2d ed., 56. 

3 Egerton Leigh, when he was created a baronet in 1772 as a reward for 
championing the royal prerogative in South Carolina, was fresh from the 
impious crime of seducing his young sister-in-law, under the promise to 
marry her when his wife, her sister, died, an event which he represented to 
the girl as certain soon to occur. He had taken the girl to his home on the 
death of her parents, prevailing over the desire of other relatives to adopt 
her by his extraordinary professions of tender solicitude. After Ijdng most 
basely when accused of his crime, he later, under overwhelming proof, con- 
fessed with tears. The allusion to Leigh in a pamphlet, evidently by 
William Henry Drayton, in a controversy in 1773-4 ^.s "the worst and most 
abandoned of men" (McCrady, ii., 722) can hardly be explained except as 
a reference to Leigh's then well-known and recent infamy; for he was visited 
with the contempt which he merited. The history of the affair is in the 
correspondence of Henry Laurens with his brother James. The girl's hand 
was still sought by a respectable young Englishman who had entertained a 
strong affection for her before her misfortune; but she refused his offers 
and took up her residence with relatives in England. 

The appointment of characters like Leigh to high office in the colonies 
by the British government was not uncommon. Leigh's father was sent to 
South Carolina as Chief Justice to supplant the eminent Chief Justice 
Charles Pinckney in reward for services in making electioji returjis 



104 Life of Henry Laurens 

Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens when himself doing the 
Lieutenant-Colonel business in circumstances requiring a right 
good measure of steadfastness showed himself of proper metal. 
We are not bound to suppose that Colonel John got all his 
dashing bravery and fine talent for military affairs from his 
excellent mother. 

The campaign of 1761 gave rise to a bitter personal dispute 
which raised wide-spreading animosities that rankled for 
years in the breasts of many besides the principals. Colonel 
Middleton, anticipating some unpleasantness, as he himself 
stated, secured beforehand from Lieutenant-Governor Bull 
permission to return at any time he should "find the service 
irksome or disagreeable. " This he chose to do upon the con- 
clusion of the thirty day mountain campaign instead of waiting 
like Laurens and the other officers through the tedious weeks 
that followed, giving as his reason that he had been subjected 
throughout by Colonel Grant to systematic slights.^ Grant 
disclaimed any slighting conduct or intention. A duel ensued ; 
but the bullets which passed did less harm than the hot war of 
words which raged between the partisans of the two officers. 
Though a majority sided with Middleton, some considered his 
conduct ungracious towards one who, having come to defend 
the province, was in a sense both benefactor and guest. In 
leaving the Indian country Middleton parted from Laurens 
as a friend, despite their difference on the points at issue and 
the attempts of meddlers to foment discord between them.^ 
Laurens severely blamed Middleton, though his own dignity 
and authority were increased by the latter's retirement, and 

under circumstances which threatened him with a criminal prosecution. 
(McCrady, ii., 279-80.) Lecky quotes some pectdiarly revolting instances. 
Needless to say that these incidents were very influential in bringing the 
Americans to a state of mind which made rebellion easier in 1775. 

' I am imable to determine from his statement in the Appendix to the 
Extracts from the Court of Vice-Admiralty, 58, whether Laurens returned 
from the Cherokee country in November, 1761, or January, 1762, or 
whether his stay was prolonged in order to inspect the region, in which he 
was much interested both as a public man and as an investor. 

2 Middleton to Laurens, August 17, 1761,. in Appendix to Extracts from 
the Court of Vice-Admiralty, 57, 



Early Public Life and the Cherokee War 105 

defended Grant in a long and able article against Gadsden.^ 
Besides blaming Middleton for returning before the end of the 
expedition, Laurens denied that his conduct had been in any- 
wise distinguished. He acquitted Grant of slighting or im- 
proper conduct — a point on which I have formed no opinion — 
and vindicated him as having performed his task thoroughly 
and well, a conclusion which I do not believe can be questioned. 
The dispute between Middleton and Grant was a generally 
recognized affair before Middleton announced on the loth 
of July his intention to return home. ^ Whether it antedated 
the departure for the back country and what grounds Colonel 
Middleton had for securing before-hand permission to return 
if he should "find the service irksome or disagreeable" I do 
not know ; but the fact that he anticipated trouble and went 
thus forearmed could not make for cordiality. However, 
Gadsden in defending him expressed the feelings of the great 
majority of the people, and Laurens's bold espousal of the 
unpopular side was an illustration of his calm and determined 
independence. 

The feeling between Laurens and Gadsden grew very bitter 
despite the efforts of their friends for peace. Nor was this 
the first dilEference between Laurens and his next door neigh- 
bor to the north. Gadsden says that he had been friendly 
with Laurens until "his gross and public affronts several years 
since. "3 What the trouble was I have not discovered; but 
it serves to show how far we may be misled by Johnson's 
prettily imagined passage* of the perfect agreement of the 
two friends in opinions, business, and their defense of American 
rights, the "warmth of Gadsden's temper" being "moderated 
by the calculating policy of Laurens's reflections." There is 
no reason to question the pleasing story by Laurens's son-in- 

' Laurens signed himself Philolethes (it is spelled so in his MS.) in Wells's 
Gazette of Feb. 28, 1763, which is missing, but his MS. is preserved. Gads- 
den in the 5. C. Gazette, of Feb. 26, 1763, acknowledged himself Philo- 
patrios. 

' Laurens's Appendix to Extracts, etc., 2d ed., 59, and Gazette article. 

s S. C. Gazette, March 12, 1763. 

* Traditions of the Revolution, 38. 



io6 Life of Henry Laurens 

law, Dr. Ramsay, about the two distinguished patriots, so 
similar in some respects and in others so different, born in the 
same city only eight days apart s being "attached in their early 
youth to each other by the strongest ties of ardent friendship. 
They made a common cause to support and encourage each 
other in every virtuous pursuit, to shun every path of vice and 
folly, to leave company whenever it tended to licentiousness, 
and by acting in concert, to parry the charge of singularity so 
grating to young persons." ^ But after they had reached about 
thirty-five years, the satisfaction of the keen, curt, successful 
man of aif airs and the rugged and irascible patriot at having 
faithfully kept their early pledge of virtue was embittered by 
the regret that they had not always been able to walk these 
straight paths hand in hand. 

The traits and friendships and principles which marked 
Laurens in these years as legislator and soldier proved lasting. 
We find him to the end in close association with the same 
friends with few exceptions, repeatedly in misunderstandings 
with Gadsden, and in politics maintaining the same principles 
of self-government and looking always upon public affairs with 
eyes that saw a great deal more than the interests of a single 
colony, State, or section. 



NOTE ON THE CHEROKEES 

Though the Cherokees here drop out of owe narrative, we 
may notice briefly their later history in South Carolina and 

' Gadsden was bom Feb. 27, and Laurens, March 6, 1724, N. S. John- 
son's account of their friendship in his Traditions of the Revolution, 38, 
appears to be an erroneous and loosely enlarged rendering of Ramsay's 
carefully worded statement. A note of Laurens's to Gadsden, Ap. 2, 1765, 
on surveying the line between their properties is as brief and formal as 
possible. — ^Hist. Soc. of Penn., Laurens MSS. 

' History 0/ 5. C, ii., 457. 



Early Public Life and the Cherokee War 107 

their present residence in North CaroHna. Upon the out- 
break of the Revolution, stimulated by British agents, they 
rose in a fearful massacre in the far northwest of South Caro- 
lina. The new commonwealth, after the most desperate 
struggle it had experienced since its settlement, crushed them 
even more severely than in 1761. The chiefs appeared at 
De Wett's Corner (now transcribed into Due West) and on 
May 20, 1777, signed a treaty acknowledging that they 
had been conquered as far as the Unacaye Mountains, by 
which they appear to have meant the range between North 
Carolina and Tennessee which forms the southwestward 
extension of the Great Smokies.^ South Carolina agreed of 
her own mere grace to allow the Cherokees, during good 
behavior, to dwell beyond a northeast and southwest line 
running across the highest part of Oconee Mountain. This 
boundary, starting near the mouth of the Chattooga River, 
crossed the northwestern part of Oconee and Pickens Counties 
towards Estatoe Mountain, striking North Carolina about 
two miles west of the extreme northwestern corner of Green- 
ville County, South CaroHna. By laying a ruler across the 
map, one may see how small was the part of South Carolina 
reserved to its one time sovereigns . ^ In 1 8 1 6 they surrendered 
this the last of their heritage of a third of the State of South 
Carolina. The Creeks, in ceding a large tract in Georgia in 
1790, included the region between the Keowee River in South 
Carolina and the Cherokee line; but their title to this had 

^ Drayton's map in his Memoirs, ii., 342, is very crude and appears to 
me erroneous in the position it assigns the "Unacaye" Mountains. It is 
not in accord with the description in the treaty of cession on page 362 of his 
book. The mountains we know to-day as the Unakas, which I have said 
above seem to me to be meant, meet the conditions both of the campaign 
and the words of the treaty, and I know of no reason to suppose that the 
name has been transferred since the Revolution from one great range to 
another. 

* Ramsay's edition of 1858, map at front, also pp. no and 112; Logan 
(less clear), i., 505; Drayton, ii., 362, and map at p. 342; topographical 
maps of the U. S. Geological Survey, Walhalla, Oconee, Pisgah, and Pickens 
quadrangles; Bureau of Ethnology, i8th Annual Report (1897), Part II, 
pp. 648, 652, and 680, and Plates CLV, CXXII, and CLXI. 



io8 Life of Henry Laurens 

never been regarded, and the cession was a mere act of super- 
erogation. ' 

This ends their history in this State. The bulk of the nation 
was transported in the '30's to the Indian Territory. The 
writer spent a week in the Qualla Reservation a few years ago. 
Old man Chiltoss and Siquay Armychain and Joe Running 
Wolf and his wife Molly Walking Snake, still a grim and 
glummish, stalwart race, exchanged few and prudent words 
with the stranger, if indeed any at all ; for some refuse to speak 
the white man's language and profess not to understand it. 
The Indian still has trouble keeping the white man's cattle 
and lumber choppers off his lands, and if anything is stolen 
from the nicely hewn chestnut log cabins, I was told, he sus- 
pects that a white man has been around — a remark I duly 
pondered and hoped that thievish fellows of all colors would 
refrain from their operations until I was well away. 

To-day 2078 souls huddled together on the Qualla Reser- 
vation in Swain County, N. C, among the majestic domes 
and valleys of the Great Smokies, comprise "The Eastern 
Band of Cherokees." Time will tell whether their beloved 
whiskey or the excellent educational training supplied by the 
United States government will win the victory. Small num- 
bers of Indians, whether all Cherokees does not appear, 
scattered throughout North Carolina, bring the total in the 
State to 7914.'' 

' Bureau of Ethnology, as just cited. 

» Letter to author from office of the Commissioner of Indian ASairs, 
May 7, 1913. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EXCITED POLITICS, 1 762-64 

LAURENS states in a paper written in 1781 that after 
entering the Assembly in 1757 he was reelected contin- 
uously until the Revolution ; but his memory failed him slightly, 
for he was not a member of the short-lived house elected 
in January, 1762, and dissolved the following September.* 
This was due doubtless to his having espoused the cause of 
Grant in that ofificer's controversy with Middleton. He was, 
however, returned to the house in the general election of 
October, 1762, without effort on his part from the parish of 
St. Michael's and would have been from St. Philip's also, he 
asserts, but for his friends' refraining from pushing him there 
as he was sure of the other. ^ It is interesting to note how 
there were certain political families that largely held the offices 
year after year. E. g.,m this house there were only four of the 
forty-seven named in the Gazette of October 23, 1762, who 
had not been at some time members before, and only seven 
who were not members of the last house. Laurens took his 
election as a vindication of his conduct both in the war and in 
the disputes following, saying in 1769 that the universal cry 
had been against Grant, but that he (Laurens), though taking 
the unpopular side, so vindicated himself as a friend of truth 
as to win this endorsement by the electors. 

In the short-lived house whose existence extended from 
January to September, 1762, there arose the most violent dis- 
pute which had so far occurred in South Carolina between the 

' 5. C. Gazette, Jan. 30, 1762. 

^ Extracts from the Court of Vice-Admiralty, 2d ed., 58-9. 

109 



no Life of Henry Laurens 

royal Governor and the people's representatives. The cause 
was Governor Boone's gross violation of the rights of the 
Assembly in judging of the election of its own members. 
Lieutenant-Governor Bull, after administering the govern- 
ment for a year following the departure of Lyttleton, was 
succeeded by the coarse, passionate, and immoral Thomas 
Boone, late Governor of New Jersey. Boone found fault with 
the election law of the province, although it had served satis- 
factorily for the past forty years. He soon illustrated his 
meaning by refusing to administer the state oaths ^ to Chris- 
topher Gadsden, because it appeared that the returning officers, 
the church wardens of the parish, had not been sworn for that 
particular duty before holding the election, as he interpreted 
the law to require. The House accepted the election as valid 
nevertheless, on the ground that the oath taken by the wardens 
on assuming office for the faithful discharge of all their duties 
was sufficient. Boone peremptorily dissolved the Assembly, 
"to manifest," he said, "in as public a manner as I can my 
disavowal of so undeniable an infraction of the Election Act. " 
Gadsden was of course reelected, and the Commons at once 
proceeded to vindicate their predecessors in defending their 
constitutional rights and to denounce the act of the Governor 
in seeking to control elections. Boone replied with equal 
positiveness and very bad temper in a style suggesting a 
crabbed overseer rather than the chief executive of a free 
people. The Assembly resolved, December i6, 1762, that they 
would transact no business with him until he had done them 
justice. Matters continued at a deadlock, and Boone con- 
tinued politically and socially ostracized until his departure 
in May, 1764, when he was followed for a two year period 
by that best of the King's servants in South Carolina, 
Lieutenant-Governor Bull. 

The Boone-Gadsden affair bred much bad feeling, and it 
is not unlikely that the almost fatal encounter between the 
conservative Mr. Laurens and the choleric radical Mr. Thomas 

' Every member, his election having been passed upon by the House, 
had to take before the Governor the oaths of allegiance to the House of 
Hanover and abjuration of the Stuart pretender, "the state oaths." 



Excited Politics, 1762-64 iii 

Wright on a Saturday afternoon, August 13, 1763, was the 
easier because of their divergent politics. Wright, who had 
been called to task for removing stones from Laurens's 
property, came armed upon the scene. After a few words he 
drew his sword, cut Laurens in the hand and received a whack 
on the head from his opponent's stick which served to madden 
rather than subdue him. At this point Wright was prevented 
from committing murder by being forcibly disarmed.'' 

The election controversy spread to the newspapers, where 
Gadsden, Laurens, and others in a general way grouped them- 
selves in the gazettes of the radical Timothy or the conserva- 
tive Wells, foreshadowing the later course of the former as the 
organ of the Sons of Liberty and the latter of the royalists. 
Though Laurens, so far as I can gather, maintained the con- 
trol of the Assembly over elections, his steady conservatism 
had small patience with "one poor rash headlong gentleman 
. . . a ringleader . . . inpopular quarrels," for declaring that 
he would rather have half the province destroyed than yield to 
the Governor. , If he lived at Long Canes instead of Charles- 
ton or even had £1000 invested there, he remarked, he would 
sing a different tune.^ The matter became the occasion of 
one of those vio ent contests between the two houses which 
were so surely sapping the influence of the Council and aug- 
menting that of the Commons. The Commons, declining to 
bestow the customary salary upon one who had so violated 
their constitutional rights, omitted from the tax bill any pro- 

' Laurens to Joseph Brown, Aug. 19, 1763, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 
The grounds for classing Wright as a radical are found at p. 42, n., ef passim. 

= Laurens to Christopher Rame, Feb. 8, 1764, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 
Laurens's description and the sentiments of the "poor rash headlong 
gentleman" both indicate Gadsden. Laurens was bitterly opposing 
Gadsden in the Middleton-Grant affair during the Boone-Gadsden dispute, 
and it might be inferred from an article signed " By-Standers " in the 5'. C. 
Gazette for March 19-26, 1763, that he, like Wragg, maintained the illegal- 
ity of Gadsden's election. Gadsden himself says, however: "I believe 
Col. Laurens did not communicate any of his writings or observations 
. . . with any intention to throw me out at my election," but that they 
have been made use of for that purpose. Wells's Gazette, Laurens's medium, 
is lacking for this period. 



112 Life of Henry Laurens 

vision for Governor Boone. In 1764 the Council returned the 
bill with £7000 currency added for Boone's two years' salary. 
The Commons, swept by their wrath beyond their usual 
parliamentary expressions, dealt the Council the rudest blow 
yet struck in the contest which had waged intermittently since 
1725. They said in substance : 

We would be surprised at your effrontery if repeated offenses had not 
accustomed us to it. As for your "instructions" from the King, you 
certainly need instructions from somebody; in this particular matter, 
however, we question the accuracy of your statement. We do not need 
you to tell us that no Governor was ever deprived of his allowance since 
this became a royal province; that only emphasizes his demerits. JsTever 
before has any Governor been so enormous in his "repeated insults and 
attacks upon the rights and privileges of the people." The money "is not 
a salary, but a gratuity from the people, which they would be stupid to 
bestow upon a Governor who has endeavored to deprive them of what 
ought to be valued by every Englishman more than life itself." But that 
we may give even you your dues, we must "most highly applaud your 
most profound sagacity in discovering the" virtues of a Governor whose 
"haughtiness and despotism" South Carolina has never seen exceeded. 
We can easily luiderstand your his sycophants' "utmost . . . suppleness 
... to avoid that suspended rod, which the least refractoriness would 
inevitably bring" down. We do not know how much you are being re- 
warded for this, you disinterested "volunteers"; but know "that we will 
not restore the sum of £7,000. . . . NO! not even for your favorite 
GOVERNOR!"' 

High words, and under the circumstances excusable; and 
their users as effectively removed his Excellency as did ever a 
legislature by impeachment. It was not in the remotest sense 
a matter of saving the money, and so the Commons, in defer- 
ence to the King's own request after he had recalled the offen- 
sive Governor, paid him the sum. 

In the light of the lively composition just quoted, and the 
partisan fires of 1761 still hot, as Laurens wrote Grant, Sept. 
15, 1764, he might truly speak of South Carolina as "this very 
disturbed state." We may agree with the author of the 
Traditions of the Revolution that this long, irritating, and 
disgustful controversy played its part in preparing the minds 

'Wallace's Constitutional Hist, of S. C, 1725-75, 57-8, quoting Corns. 
Jour. S. C, MS., xxxvi., 342-6. Condensed where not in quotation marks. 



Excited Politics, 1762^4 113 

of the leaders of politics in South Carolina for resisting the 
royal government itself. 

It was shortly after Boone's departure and about the time 
of the action of the Commons just narrated that Laurens was 
offered a position as a member of the King's Council, a body 
in which his partner Austin already sat. Among others, 
Lieutenant-Governor Bull and Laurens's friend Colonel Grant 
were chiefly instrumental in obtaining him this honor. ^ 
There can be no doubt that these good supporters of the royal 
cause felt that Laurens's moderation in the storms of the past 
three years and his fearless support of an officer of the King's 
army against a popular local character deserved recognition. 
The nomination is but another testimony to the sincerity and 
intelligence of that good man William Bull who so much better 
than any other of the King's servants sought to carry peace 
and even justice alike to his distant master and his neighbors 
and fellow citizens. The Council needed strengthening by 
men of character and reputation in the community. Already 
one of the leading features of South Carolina politics for the 
twenty years preceding the Revolution had set in — the decline 
in character and public confidence of that body. This incip- 
ient degeneration had recently been accelerated and dramati- 
cally blazoned abroad to all men by the act of that same heady, 
double dealing and mismanaging Governor Lyttleton of the 
Indian troubles in abruptly dismissing Councillor William 
Wragg, one of the most respected citizens of the province and 
the most loyal of supporters of the royal government. ' ' From 
that day," says Bancroft, "it became the pride of native 
South Carolinians not to accept a seat in that body. " Before 
that time the name of a royal placeman is rarely to be found 
among the Councillors ; among the members added later, it is 
almost as hard to find any others.^ An appointment to the 

^ Bull recommended Laurens May i6, 1764. Pub. Recs. of S. C, MS., 
XXX., 143-4. 

^Bancroft, v., 410, citing correspondence of Lieutenant-Gov. Bull; 
Drayton's Memoirs, i., 314-5, n., and list of Councillors in McCrady's 
S. C. under the Royal Government, 801-2. N. B. that Laurens's name is given 
in the list of Councillors cited above in McCrady, which was made out 



114 Life of Henry Laurens 

Council was still an honor, though a diminished one, and it 
might have been supposed one very welcome to a rich merchant 
of large landed interests, getting into middle life, marked by- 
loyalty and ability, and withal rather conservative; but he 
would not accept it. He wrote, October lo, 1764, to Richard 
Oswald : 

Much I am indebted to them all for their kind intentions, but I wish 
that they had previously consulted my own inclinations. It would have 
saved some trouble; for I am determined not to be prevailed upon by any 
arguments to accept that honor. I have many reasons to urge why I 
ought not; but I shall trouble you with only two, which to me are invincible: 
The first, that I cannot attend to the duty of the Covmcil consistently 
with my plan of life and business, and I always make a conscience of dis- 
charging every trust imposed on me — at least I would set out upon that 
principle. Second, I am not qualified for a reputable and honorable dis- 
charge of that duty ; and upon my word, sir, I have been sorry to see that 
Honorable Board so much slighted as it has been at some times by certain 
' ; appointments which hath reduced its character with some people almost 
I below contempt ; but I have nothing to do with this at present. ... If 
one (a mandamus) is already issued I must pay the expense, but will 
never make use of it. 

Laurens looks with regret upon the degradation of the 
Council as a patriotic member of the House of Representatives 
might regret degeneration in the Senate, even though it raised 
the comparative influence of his own house. But the appoint- 
ment of placemen had already gone so far as to call forth the 
bitter sneer of the Commons at their fear of "that suspended 
rod, which the least refractoriness will inevitably bring " down. 
The policy of His Majesty in "slighting" that "Honorable 
Board" "by certain appointments which hath reduced its 
character with some people almost below contempt" was to 
lead other men of Laurens's type also to decline appoint- 
ments, and we may be sure that this was one of the "many 
reasons" which led him to decline the commission. So 
much the more certain was it, therefore, that he should again 

by me at Gen. McCrady's request from the correspondence between the 
Governors and the royal government. Laurens's mandamus was delivered 
to him, but he declined it, a fact I was not aware of until I wrote this book. 



Excited Politics, 1762-64 115 

decline the same offer four or five years later. ^ And perhaps 
there was another reason more significant than any of the 
others, one which he himself at that time probably could not 
have formiilated. ^here was already well advanced a contest 
between the principle of constitutional self-government in the 
province represented in the Commons House of Assembly 
and the principle of the prerogative of an outside power re- 
presented in the Council, a contest soon to be merged in the 
wider one for which this was so finely preparing the weapons 
and the men to wield them. Intimations of these things men 
afterwards could see were by no means wanting even thus 
early, but probably no man yet formulated them and stated 
them as reasons to himself. Nevertheless men of a certain 
type instinctively were drawn to the one side and repelled 
from the other. 

'Montagu to Hillsborough, March, 1769, in Pub. Rec. of S. C, MS., 
xxxii., 74. 



CHAPTER IX 

LAURENS AND THE STAMP ACT 

THE Stamp Act presented a severe trial to the principles 
and conduct of a man who, like Laurens, opposed it as 
oppressive and unconstitutional, but who, as a loyal British 
subject and orderly citizen, was confronted with mobs, 
violence, and organized intercolonial resistance. He urged 
petition and remonstrance in order to secure repeal and re- 
garded all illegal agitation not only as futile, but as inviting 
worse consequences. His attitude is revealed in the following 
letter written a week before the arrival of the stamps : 

We in Carolina have now a glorious opportunity of standing distin- 
guished for our loyalty, which we have sometimes boasted of very much — 
an opportunity of standing single in the only cause wherein singularity 
merits commendation — the cause of virtue. I was going to say much more 
upon this subject, but time fails. Let me however add that I hope you 
as a magistrate — as a good subject — as a prudent man will do all in your 
power to discourage all the little apings and mockery in your town (George- 
town) of those infamous inglorious feats of riot and dissipation which have 
been performed to the No'ward of us and which may stiU (tho I hope not) 
be feebly imitated by some turbulent spirits in this metropolis. Conclude 
not hence that I am an advocate for the stamp tax. No, by no means — 
I would give — I would do — a great deal to procure a repeal of the law which 
imposes it upon us; but I am sure that nothing but a regular, decent, be- 
coming representation of the inexpediency and inutility of that law will 
have the desired effect and that all irregular seditious practices will have 
an evil tendency, even perhaps to perpetuate that and to bring upon us 
other acts of Parliament big with greater mischiefs. Resignations which 
people here build so much upon can answer no good end. The Act must 
be executed and indeed a suspension of it while it is in force would prove 
our ruin and destruction, and I am sure that if a stamp officer were so 
timid as to resign and a Governor so complisant (sic) as not to appoint 

Il6 



9^'- 



Laurens and the Stamp Act 117 

another in his stead — we should in one fortnight if nothing else wotild do, 
go down on our knees and pray him to give life to that law. What, else, 
would become of our estates, particularly ours who depend upon commerce? 
Tn short there remains nothing for us at present to do but to show a graceful 
obedience to the law imtil we can procure its annihilation in a consti- 
tutional way or to beat to arms, and I defy all the grumbletonions from 
Quebeck to West Florida to point out a medium. ' 

The stamps arrived in Charleston harbor October i8, 1765, / 
but so threatening was the popular opposition that they were 
deposited in Fort Johnson, across the Ashley River from the 
city. Laurens's apprehensions of disorders and resignations 
were soon realized. For nine days the city was filled with' 
threats, tumults, hangings in effigy, manifestoes, and mobs, 
which were only terminated by the resignation of the stamp ; 
officers. Laurens viewed the searching of houses as "burg-j 
lary and robbery" and saw in the zeal of the destroyers^' 
only a desire to postpone the payment of their debts. "A 
few days more, ' ' he wrote in words which give point to the 
gibes at "mercantile patriots," "will necessitate us to beg 
for them (the stamps) or involve every man of property in 
the utmost confusion."^ 

The night of the very day on which he wrote this denuncia- 
tion of "burglary and robbery" upon the houses of the stamp 
officers, Laurens was himself subjected to the same outrage. 
His disapproval of these methods was well known, and accord- 
ingly when it was rumored that Lieutenant-Governor Bull, 
fearing an attack on Fort Johnson, had confided the stamps to 
a gentleman in Ansonboro, the mob concluded that their 
guardian could be none other than Colonel Laurens. At 
midnight of the 23d they committed the outrageous criminal 
attack upon his home which he describes in the following letter 
five days later : 

I had intended to have set out upon my journey (to Florida) on Friday 
last, but an imlucky circumstance that occurred on Wednesday night the 

^Laurens to Joseph Brown, Oct. 11, 1765; in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 
In this same library, Laurens to Fisher, Feb. 27, 1766: "Nothing (with all 

submission I say it) could be more foolish than the whole conduct of 

in Stamp Act but ours in the manner we have chosen to oppose it." 

' Laurens to Joseph Brown, Oct. 22, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Perm, MSS, 



ii8 Life of Henry Laurens 

23d has so affected Mrs. Laurens's bodily health as well as her spirits 
that my presence and attention at home are become absolutely necessary. 

At midnight of the said Wednesday I heard a most violent thumping 
and confused noise at my western door and chamber window, and soon 
distinguished the sounds of Liberty Liberty and stamped paper, Open your 
doors and let us search your house and cellars. I opened the window, saw 
a crowd of men chiefly in disguise and heard the voices and thumping of 
many more on the other side, assured them that I had no stamped paper 
nor any connection with stamps. When I found that no fair words would 
pacify them I accused them with cruelty to a poor sick woman far gone 
with child' and produced Mrs. Laurens shrieking and wringing her hands, 
adding that if there was any one man amongst them who owed me a spite 
and would turn out I had a brace of pistols at his service and would settle 
the dispute immediately but that it was base in such a multitude to attack 
a single man — to this they replied in general that they loved and respected 
me — would not hurt me nor my property but that they were sent by some 
of my seemingly best friends to search for stamped paper which they 
were certain was in my custody advised me to open the door to prevent 
worse consequences. 

Conscious of my innocence, I was pausing whether to refuse every one 
of their demands or barely to open the door, at which they still continued 
knocking as if they would have beat down the house, and to let them pro- 
ceed as their rage and madness should impel them — but Mrs. Laurens's 
condition and her cries prompted me to open the door which in two minutes 
more they would have beat thro : — a brace of cutlasses across my breast 
was the salutation and Lights Lights and Search — was the cry. I presently 
knew several of them under their thickest disguises of soot, sailors habits, 
slouch hats &ca and to their great surprise called no less than nine of 
them by name and fixed my eyes so attentively upon other faces as to 
discover at least the same number since. They made a very superficial 
search indeed, or rather no search at all in my house, counting house, 
cellar and stable. After that farce was over they insisted on my taking 
what they called "A Bible Oath" that I knew not where the stamped paper 
was, which I absolutely refused, ^ not failing to confirm my denials with 
Damns of equal weight with their own — a language which I only had learned 
from them — they threatened then to carry me away to some unknown 
place and punish me. I replied they might if they would — they had strength 

' The boy bom a month later Laurens's good humored German friend 
Gervais insisted on calling "George Liberty" or for short "Liberty" as 
representing both sides of the controversy, but the parents preferred to 
name him James. — Laurens to Gervais, Jan. 29 and Sept. i, 1766, in Hist. 
Soc. Penn. MSS. 

^ JLaurens knew it was a,t Fort Johnson; see previous letter to Brown. 



Laurens and the Stamp Act 119 

enough, but I would be glad to have it attempted by any man alone either 
among them or those who they said had sent them. When they found 
this attempt fruitless a softer oath, as they thought, was propounded — 
I must say "May God disinherit me from the Kingdom of Heaven" if I 
knew where the stamped papers were. This I likewise per(e)mptorily 
refused and added that I would not have one word extorted from my mouth 
— that I had voluntarily given my word and honor but would not suffer 
even that to pass my lips by compulsion — further that if I had once 
accepted a trust they might stamp me to powder but should not make me 
betray it — that my sentiments of the Stamp Act was well known I had 
openly declared myself an enemy to it and would give and do a great deal 
to procure its annihilation but that I could not think that they pursued 
a right method to obtain a repeal &ca &ca. Sometimes they applauded, 
sometimes cursed me. At length one of them holding my shoulders said 
they loved me and everybody would love me if I did not hold way with one 
Govr. Grant. This provoked me not a little as it exhibited to me the cloven 
foot of a certain malicious villain acting behind the curtain who could be 
reached only by suspicion. ^ I answered that if he meant that I corresponded 
with Govr. Grant and esteemed him as a gentleman I acknowledged with 
pleasure that I did 'hold way, ' as he called it, with him — that I knew noth- 
ing in Govr. Grant's conduct or principles as a gentleman that could 
shame my acquaintance with him; that if Govr. Grant had any criminal 
schemes or projects he was too prudent to trust me with his secrets — 
but in one word for all, gentlemen, I am in your power, you are very strong 
and may if you please barbicu me — I can but die — but you shall not by 
any force or means whatsoever compel me to renounce my friendships or 
to speak ill of men that I think well of or to say or do a mean thing. ^ This 
was their last effort, they praised me highly and insisted upon giving me 
three cheers and then retired with "God bless your Honor," "Good night, 
Colonel, — we hope the poor lady will do well," &ca &ca. A thousand other 
things were said and done in an hour and a quarter, the time of this visit, 
but the above is a fair abstract of all that is important. Is it not amazing 
that such a number of men many of them heated with liquor and all armed 
with cutlasses and clubs did not do one penny damage to my garden not 
even to walk over a bed and not 1 5/ damage to my fence, gate or house. 
Mrs. Laurens has been very ill indeed, but today I have great hopes that 
she will go out her expected time of four or five weeks longer. ^ The party 
have gained a great victory and triumph today over G. Saxby and Caleb 
Lloyd. You'll hear a million of reports; don't believe all, or rather believe 
none but what is authenticated. ** 

' He must mean Gadsden. 

' A very skillful shifting of the question to his own advantage. 

3 She did, though "her life was for some weeks thought to be in great 
danger" after her fright. Laurens to Fisher, Feb. 27, 1766. 

4 Laurens to Joseph Brown, Oct. 28, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 



120 Life of Henry Laurens 

The day of this letter, the 28th of October, on which the 
people "gained a great victory and triumph" over the stamp 
officers, was indeed a gala occasion. Colonel Laurens pro- 
bably showed his disapproval by remaining indoors. The now 
unmuffled bells of St. Michael's chimed as a committee of citi- 
zens bringing the stamp officers from their retreat in Fort 
Johnson landed from a boat with that ominous thing at its 
' bow, a "union flag" bearing in the center "Liberty. " Before 
the vastest throng ever assembled in the province, the officials' 
renunciation of office was read and was applauded by the 
shouts of the people, the ringing bells, the sounds of drums, 
hautboys, and violins and the booming of cannon. Such was 
the joyous termination of nine days' disorder, with a good dash 
of window smashing, intimidation and invasion of private/ 
houses, all (if we are to trust Laurens's surmises, who though} 
a prejudiced witness, was at least on the ground) very largely 
engineered by that rough-riding leader of the South Carolina 
"Sons of Liberty, " Christopher Gadsden.^ 

A peculiar incident, revealing in what dread the citizens 
lived among the black savages with whom they were surround- 
ing themselves, was furnished in January by some negroes 
who, apparently in mere thoughtless imitation, began to cry 
"Liberty." The city was thrown under arms for a week 
and for ten or fourteen days messengers were sent posting 
through the province in the most bitterly cold weather for 
nineteen years. Nothing was proved; but one negro was 
banished "because some of his judges said in the general course 
of his life he had been a sad dog — and perhaps that it was 
necessary to save appearances."^ 

A great part of this letter has since been printed, but I find so many little 
changes for "propriety" or carelessness, that I copied it directly from the 
letter book. 

' AU through 1765-6 Laurens ridicules and sneers at Gadsden. 

^ Laurens to Gervais, Jan. 29, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. For those 
interested in records of climate this record establishes the fact that 1747 
and 1766 were marked by excessive cold. It is interesting to note that a 
negro terror, marked that time by an execution, broke out in Charleston 
at the beginning of the Revolution. 



Laurens and the Stamp Act 121 

Late in January strong efforts were made to force the cus- 
toms officer to clear vessels without the Governor's permission. 
Lieutenant-Governor Bull himself, however, at last compro- 
mised on a "permit" for which a fee equal to the stamps was 
required. The customs officer, says Laurens, February 4th, 
was about to give way "or mount his horse before tomorrow's 
sun." A prominent lawyer assured Laurens that the courts 
would also be open by the middle of the month, which proves 
that the scheme by which Chief Justice Skinner was over- 
ridden was already on foot.^ 

Laurens continued a disgruntled on-looker while the bar 
brow-beat and outwitted Chief Justice Skinner and the mer- 
chants pushed Bull into opening the port. It pleased him 
though that, by the great accumulation of vessels during the 
embargo, freight rates had shrunk to an unheard-of figure, and 
"our rice planters have gained a vast ascendant over the Brit- 
ish owners and fairly turned the edge of the stamp tax upon 
them ' ' ; and he was prompt enough in availing himself of the 
' ' permits ' ' to send his ships to sea. ^ 

Early in May, 1766, arrival of the news of repeal gave 
the signal for two nights of hilarity. The revelers abused all 
who did not illuminate, says Laurens; "among others those 
worthy fathers Mr. Manigault and Mr. Beaufain did not 
escape. Some people suffer'd very much in both the evenings 
of rejoicing. I happened on the first to be out of town. 
What passion prompted Mrs. Laurens I won't take upon me 
to say, but she was as brilliant as anybody — and saved her 
bacon. "3 

Plainly Laurens cannot be counted among the patriots 
whose exertions defeated this attempt to tax America. He 
pledged his entire fortune in addressing the mob that "con- 
stitutional" resistance by "petitions and remonstrances" 

' Laurens to Gervais, Jan. 29, and Feb. 4, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 
For a full account of these events see McCrady, ii., 560-85; Smith, 349-57, 
and Wallace, 32-46. 

' Laurens to Fisher, Feb. 27, 1766, etc., in Etting Papers in Hist. Soc 
Penn. MSS. 

3 Laurens to Gervais, May 12, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 



122 Life of Henry Laurens 

would receive attention; but his constitutionalism as a loyal 
British subject was so strict that he refused to vote for dele- 
gates to the Stamp Act Congress/ He narrates without 
comment the vote of money by the House of Assembly for the 
portraits of the three delegates to the Stamp Act Congress 
and a marble statue of Pitt; but he has no enthusiasm even 
for the Great Commoner and cannot admit that the uncon- 
stitutional mobs and meetings did any good. 

. . . Mr. Pitt made a long and elaborate speech upon the question of 
repeal (he says). I have not seen it, but from so much as I have heard, 
he seems to have been retained by America and much indebted to their 
sentiments and dictates for the choisest (sic) flowers in his harrangue. 

Glad am I upon the whole that the Act is repealed, tho (sic) I know not 
yet what cause to ascribe it to — nor am I clear about the durability of 
our present seeming happiness. ^ 

But we are not yet at the bottom of Laurens's motives. 
Christopher Gadsden and Samuel Adams, without whom, says 
Bancroft, there would have been no Revolution, saw in the 
Stamp Act a rift between the mother country and colonies 
which might be forced until they fell apart. What they 
cherished as a consummation Laurens sensed and foreboded 
as a calamity. He could not shout with his fellow-citizens 
because he saw farther than they. Hence the notes now of 
sarcasm and now of sadness in all he wrote upon the subject. 
In concluding his letter just quoted, he says that if the news 
is true that New England is not rejoicing, it only confirms what 
"you have often heard upon this floor — that a simple repeal 
of the Stamp Act would be a disappointment to N. 
England." Here is the explanation of his conduct; he was 
not a worse patriot than his fellows; he was a better prophet. 
As a loyal subject of the British Empire he was already griev- 
ing lest his children should be called by some new name.^ 

^ See his petition of June 23, 1781, in the Tower of London. 

* Laurens to Gervais, May 12, 1766. 

3 Expression he used at the time of the Revolution. 



CHAPTER X 

THE GREAT LANDOWNER AND PLANTER — GROWTH OF POPULA- 
TION AND INDUSTRY, 1 767-68 

THE short lull in politics following the repeal of the Stamp 
Act allows us to turn our attention to the planting ac- 
tivities which Laurens in these years, like so many of his con- 
temporaries, was extending to such surprising proportions and 
to the general expansion of the industry and population of the 
province by which the older sections were being enriched and 
the back country opened up almost to the foot of the mountains. 
In 1763 land values were rising to such an extent throughout 
the province that it behooved men who owned cultivated 
plantations to think well before parting with them. ^ Laurens, 
in giving to Benjamin Addison, who had formerly been in the 
province, an account of the prosperity of the times, writes. 
May 26, 1768, that population and money are increasing daily ; 
Ansonboro is covered with houses, and the old Brew House 
land, which he had with difficulty persuaded the South Car- 
olina Society to buy for £500 would now sell for £4000 sterling. 
The very frequency with which the gout is mentioned among 
the population during these years is suggestive of abundant 
material prosperity. In 1768 Colonel Laurens himself fell 
a victim of this ailment which was in later years to give him so 
much pain. 

It was a very general custom at this time for a prosperous 
man of business to invest a large part of his fortune in landed 
estates. Two reasons dictated such a course. First, success- 
ful rice and indigo planting in the fertile virgin soil was ex- 

' Laurens to Ball, Nov. 29, 1763, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

123 



124 Life of Henry Laurens 

traordinarily profitable; and second, the possession of large 
plantations added something to the social distinction of even 
the richest merchant. This feeling is revealed by a writer 
in the bitter controversies of 1769, who twits his antagonist 
with having been an importer of European goods and yet 
having failed to become either a rich merchant or the owner 
of large plantations; and, he continues, though the gentleman 
refers to merchants as new-comers and strangers, yet the sons 
of many who began in a mercantile way are now the owners of 
large plantations.* Thus, to be only a merchant was to be 
unpleasantly associated with the idea of new-comer and 
stranger; to be in the fullest sense a South Carolinian one 
must be to the manor born, or failing that through no fault of 
his own, must have "acquired a stake in the country" by 
possessing himself of manors. 

In the politics of the period three classes may be recognized, 
so much so as at times to form the basis of formal factional 
arrangements. For instance, in 1 769 the committee appointed 
to execute the non-importation association consisted of thir- 
teen planters, thirteen merchants, and thirteen mechanics.* 
In 1768 the mechanics went so far as to hold practically a 
party primary election to nominate candidates to stand as 
their representatives in the approaching election of the As- 
sembly, and the merchants at times acted unitedly through 
their chamber of commerce and on at least one occasion 
marched in a body to the polls to vote for the nominees upon 
whom they had agreed. 

Laurens, though bred a merchant, always manifested a love 
of cultivating the soil, and his action in purchasing large landed 
estates in addition to what his father left him was due to his 
natural bent as well as to the financial and social benefits. He 
had a varied orchard and garden even before he built this 
"fine new house" at the comer of East Bay and Laurens 
streets, and at the latter we recall that he reclaimed from the 
tide marsh a four-acre tract which he filled with a great variety 
of trees, fruits, and flowers assembled from different countries 

' McCrady, ii., 649. » lb., ii., 651. 



The Great Landowner and Planter 125 

and climates, the tending of which was also one of Mrs. 
Laurens's chief delights. 

The South Carolina Gazette of July 11, 1761, advertises for 
sale a three-thousand-acre tract, beautiful and advantageous 
for situation on the northern bank of the Cooper, twenty-nine 
miles above Charleston.^ It lay in the southeastern part of 
the parish of St. John's, Berkeley, and had "a high and pleas- 
ant bluff close to the river, and a good landing-place. Any 
vessel that comes here may load at said landing. " Laurens 
purchased the place, June 4, 1762, from John Colleton, Esq., 
of Middlesex, England, and after the Revolution made it his 
country home — indeed his regular home; but at the end of 
June, he says, "the girls for fashion sake go to town."' 

Mepkin is to this day, even in its abandoned state as part of 
a hunting preserve, a spot of surprising beauty. The clear 
majestic river flows at the bottom of a sheer bluff forty feet 
in height which two slight waterways set off into three gently 
sloping hills, the most even and elevated being in the center. 
Raised upon this into the path of every breeze and situated 
some two hundred yards back sat the house in the midst of a 
large park through whose trees it commanded the southward 
sweep of the river and the rice fields fading into the horizon 
among the flats on the other side. To-day only the ruins of 
the foundations can be found by struggling through a luxuriant 
thicket of varnish trees, the presence of which only at this point 
in the region suggests that they are descended from the plant- 
ings of Laurens's own hand. One of the gigantic live oaks was 
said by his granddaughter to have shaded almost an acre. 
Rightly were these old homes the pride of their owners. Each 
had its name, like a gentleman's seat in the old country, which 
gave it individuality through generations. To walk through 
their ruins starts such sad reflections, romantic associations, 
and noble sentiments as nothing else in our country can awake. 
Approached through long double or quadruple avenues of 

' Or rather the eastern bank as we would express it. Laurens speaks of 
it as thirty miles from Charleston. It lies upon the eastern side of the 
western branch of the river. 

' Charleston Register of Mesne Conveyance Office, Book ZZ, page i. 



126 Life of Henry Laurens 

trees, surrounded by lovely gardens and embosomed in great 
whispering oaks, they fostered a life which drew something of 
its fullness and breadth from the rice fields over which they 
looked, changing with the seasons from the delicate green of 
spring to the rich gold of harvest. 

The year 1763 might very well be taken as the center of 
colonial South Carolina's great period of prosperity and ex- 
pansion. The country was throbbing with the sense of pa- 
triotism and power at the brilliant consummation of the 
French and Indian war, and the quarrels soon to arise with 
the mother country were undreamed of. The long-standing 
peril from the Cherokees had vanished and the prosperity of 
both planter and merchant supplied capital for the new oppor- 
tunities which beckoned. This same year Georgia settled her 
long-standing dispute with the Creeks and quadrupled her 
territory by obtaining the cessions to the north and south of 
the little block around Savannah. From this dates her pros- 
perity. Outside capital flowed in to develop the new lands 
and her commerce increased almost fivefold within the next 
ten y ear s.^ 

The acquisition of Florida the same year added another field 
for enterprise. South Carolina and English capital imme- 
diately began to flow into all three of the newly opened fields. 
In 1763 Laurens took out for friends warrants for extensive 
surveys south of the Altamaha, and in May, June, and July, 
1766, made his long-intended tour of inspection through 
Florida and southeastern Georgia.^ He was prompt to 

' Bancroft, iii., 64; Eighteenth An. Rept., Bureau Am. Ethnology, pt. 2, 
pp. 634-9; U. B. Phillips's "Georgia and State Rights," in An. Rept. Am. 
Hist. Asso., 1901, ii., 39-40. 

2 Laurens to Lachlan Mcintosh, May i, 1763, etc., and to Flagg, July 
30, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. Lachlan Mcintosh of Georgia was 
one of Laurens's most valued friends. Mcintosh was bom near Inverness 
Scotland, March, 1725, says the National Cyclopedia of Am. Biography, i,, 
72, son of a leader of his clan. On the capture of his father by the Spaniards 
on Oglethorpe's expedition into Florida in 1740, Lachlan went to Charleston 
and was taken into his home and cotmting-house by Henry Laurens. Either 
the fifteen-year-old Mcintosh deferred his trip to Charleston for seven 
years imtil Laurens had a counting-house or the story really refers to Lau- 



The Great Landowner and Planter 127 

improve his opportunities in the latter, "where, by the way, " 
he wrote as early as 1764, "I have some valuable specks." 
His "specks" consisted of a three- thousand-acre grant on the 
south side of the Altamaha River and nine hundred acres on 
Broughton Island. Other South Carolinians followed his 
example. ^ 

Laurens bought no land in Florida, but preferred to confine 
himself to the new lands in Georgia, his old low country 
estates and the rich uplands recently won in South Carolina 
from the Cherokees; but he assisted others in their Florida 
enterprises. Two of his English friends wished him to secure 
them twenty thousand acres apiece in East Florida and a 
third, Richard Oswald, had several tracts, one of which 
measured eight thousand acres. ^ Oswald attempted to plant 
a colony on his East Florida principality, but he soon grew 
very weary of the continued drain which his experiments 
entailed. " O damn it! Oh, he can very well afford it, " people 
would say when Laurens protested against their plundering 
him by overcharges. 

Laurens's ideas regarding the great back country of South 
Carolina just being opened up, which he had learned to know 
and to love when he helped win it from the savages in 1761, 
were of the most enlightened kind; but sad to say he was 

rens's father. After several years he returned to Georgia. He became 
a Brigadier General in the Revolution and was entrusted by Washington 
with the defense of the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia against 
the Indians. Due to his losses during the Revolution he remained in 
poverty until his death, Feb. 20, 1806. 

' Laurens to Rossel and Gervais, Feb. 16, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 
These grants seem to have been perfected about February, 1765. 

^ Laurens to Gervais, Sept. i, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. This is 
the same Oswald who negotiated the treaty of peace with the United States 
on behalf of England in 1783. He had long resided in Virginia in his youth 
and opposed the war against the colonies. In 1774 he said to Laurens, 
"If Great Britain forces a war upon America she cannot spare troops 
enough to subdue Virginia alone if the people there will be faithful to each 
other." (Laurens's narrative in 5. C. Hist. Soc. Cols., i., 54.) Laurens 
speaks of him to Washington as a man " of a very large independent fortune 
much exceeding a quarter of a million sterling." (Laurens to Washington, 
June 18, 1778, in Letters to Washington in Library of Congress MSS.) 



128 Life of Henry Laurens 

unable to carry them into execution. Instead of the rich low 
country merchants' and planters' seizing upon the region and 
reproducing there the system of large slave-holding estates, 
he wished it peopled by small white farmers. Large holdings, 
he wrote, were a nuisance as they prevented the influx of 
settlers; and to the end of his life he sought to make that a 
country of small land-owning white men. " I do not know of 
anything," he wrote, "that I have more at heart than the 
prosperity of our back country. "^ His comment on hearing 
that his friend the Moravian missionary, John Ettwein, was 
preaching at Orangeburg in 1765 was that he wished such a 
preacher could be maintained to visit every back district at 
least once in two months — a much-needed ministration, as the 
petitions from the inhabitants averred that many of them had 
never seen a church.^ He sought to interest Oswald with his 
great resources in planting a colony at Long Canes near Abbe- 
ville; but the Englishman had had enough of colonizing and 
soon withdrew from the project, the misleading name of which 
was unpleasantly suggestive of Florida swamps where he had 
sunk so much. Laurens took up the tract on his own account , 
intending, rather inconsistently with his views on white immi- 
gration, to make it an indigo plantation. Half of it he allowed 
his friend Gervais, reserving the other half, 6600 acres, for 
himself. 3 Gervais settled in the Ninety-Six country, calling 
his estate, like a good German, Herrenhausen, and did well on 
those good lands, though he often got very blue in his exile, 
especially when he had to do his own cooking. When he 
provided himself with a cook, his friend Laurens, comfortably 
settled in Charleston, proved but a Job's comforter: 

I like your purchase of the waggon much in preference to that of the 
Irish woman although she is about forty years of age [he wrote], but in 

' Laurens to WilUamson, Sept. 3, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

* Laurens to Rowe, April 20, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

3 Laurens to Oswald, July 7, 1764, and April 27, 1768. Also a letter of 
Oct. 31, 1768. Laurens to John and Alexander Anderson, May 24, 1786. 
The exact connection of the 5000 -acre tract which he and Gervais con- 
sidered I do not know. In 1785 he speaks of his lands around Ninety- 
Six as 8000 acres. 



The Great Landowner and Planter 129 

my opinion you might have done very well without either of those carriages, 
and if you'll take my advice in a few words I would give the latter away 
rather than retain her another week. Verbum sat est sapienti. I like 
the purchase and your account of the cattle better than all except your crop 
which is upon a par with the other. How can you talk of exile, and cruel 
exile too, when you have a fine crop, fat cattle, good waggons and horses, 
and an Irish maid of about 40 years old, besides many other comforts not 
enumerated? Who but you would say — This is life indeed!' 

Laurens's interests not only as an investor but as an en- 
lightened citizen in this region, which was soon to contain a 
white population several times that of the parish region along 
the coast, made him a steady supporter of its inhabitants in 
their petitions for courts and other needful measures. The 
only court in the province except the justices of the peace sat 
in Charleston and there alone were the land office and probate 
court. As early as 1 754 the back countrymen had begun their 
petition for relief and other needful measures ; but, due at first 
to indifference and later to the determination of the ministry 
to protect certain placemen and to defeat the plan of an inde- 
pendent judiciary, which the Assembly sought to establish by 
securing the judges' tenure during good behavior instead of 
the King's pleasure, a court act was not secured until July 29, 
1769, and not until November, 1772, did the first courts meet.^* 
Laurens supported this law with great zeal and hotly de- 
nounced the self-interest of a few individuals who for the sake 
of a few pounds were wilHng to threaten thousands of their 
fellow subjects with anarchy.^ During the same period his 
liberal views as a legislator were expressed in dissatisfaction 
with the free school law because the plan was too narrow, and 
in support of mitigating the punishment for horse stealing 
from hanging to whipping, branding or cutting off the right 
ear, all which he approved except the mutilation as part of the 

' Laurens to Gervais, Sept. i, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

^ Smith, 136-8 et passim; Wallace, 25-9 et passim. The Commons 
Journal shows that as early as 1759 that house gave a circuit court bill 
a first reading. 

3 Laurens's Extracts from the Proceedings of the Court of Vice-Admir- 
alty, 21-2; Laurens's Appendix to Extracts, etc. 



I30 Life of Henry Laurens 

punishment.^ Such were his enlightened ideas while he was 
sneering at some at least of those who wished to exclude slave 
importations as hypocrites. Perhaps in addition to being 
disgusted at the selfish motives of some, his judgment was 
clouded by his own subtle selfishness as the owner of large 
unsettled plantations in need of labor and the unpleasant 
necessity of having to pay £600 ciurrency for a "man who was 
good with rice and indigo." 

To take up Laurens more specifically as a planter, his lands 
may be classed in three groups: first, the long-settled and 
highly cultivated plantations in the South Carolina low coun- 
try, Mepkin, for rice and indigo chiefly; Mt. Tacitus, seventy- 
two miles north of Charleston on the Santee, for indigo; 
Wambaw, about thirty-five miles northeast of Charleston in 
the indigo country south of the Santee, and Wright's Savannah 
in the south of the province; second, his holdings along the 
Georgia coast (principally rice growing) , Turtle River, Brough- 
ton Island, and New Hope opposite Broughton Island on the 
west bank of the Altamaha; and third, the large unsettled 
tract about Ninety-Six in upper South Carolina. His total 
holdings appear to have aggregated something like 20,000 
acres. ^ 

I Letter of Jan. 28, 1768, 

" Laurens operated Wambaw with John Coming Ball before Ball's 
death. I infer that Wright's Savannah was on Wright's River, which runs 
into the Savannah at its mouth on the northern, or South Carolina side, 
between Turtle and Jones Islands. See U. S. Coast Survey Chart, No. 
440. Broughton Island is about four miles long and two broad. It is 
just the shape of an old-fashioned shoe if you turn the map upside down, 
with the sharp toe pointing out to sea. It lies on the south side of the 
main branch of the Altamaha River about five and a quarter miles from 
the mouth, amid a network of rivers, creeks, sounds, and estuaries. See 
U. S, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Bulletin No. ig, on the Sounds and Estua- 
ries of Georgia with reference to Oyster Ctdture, Projection No. 5; Wash- 
ington, 1 89 1. Projection No. 6 shows Turtle River which enters the sea 
through St. Simon's Sound. New Hope was near these. In 1787 Laurens 
advertised his Georgia lands for sale in England as f oUows : 

1. The Broughton Island place of 1500 acres, for £2500 sterling. 

2. The New Hope place, for £3500. 

3. Also 1000 acres near the last named, for £500. 



The Great Landowner and Planter 131 

He began planting at Broughton Island in 1767, and the 
first year had as fine rice, corn, peas, hemp, and cotton growing 
there, he thought, as ever was seen anywhere; but only the 
rice and hemp were for market, the rest being experiments.^ 
His intelligent interest in agriculture was constantly mani- 
fested in such experiments in varieties of crops, methods of 
culture, and labor-saving devices. Besides the staples indigo 
and rice, he raised at Mepkin corn, potatoes, peas, and hogs. 
January 15, 1768, he orders two bushels of the best cotton seed 
from Grenada in the West Indies. At a later date^ he takes 
pride in importing the first seed of the tallow tree and thinks 
that it may prove a profitable industry. He never ceased 
during his stay in England and France from 1 771 to 1774 to 
keep on the lookout for improvements in agricultural methods 
and appliances, where, he says,^ he got valuable hints to put 
in practice at Mepkin and Wright's Savannah. He writes, 
October 13, 1767, that he is making very fine indigo and is 
securing a much better quality by a new arrangement he has, 
which also saves time and labor. It used to take 90 to 105 
minutes to pump his vats full of water and cost "the labor of 
eight stout hands and the ruin of my horses"; but now he 
pulls a plug and fills them in ten or fifteen minutes. Laurens's 
ingenuity and business methods placed his plantations among 
the best. Said an intelligent observer: 

He is a rare instance of method, whereby his plantation raises itself 
above those of this country in which everything is done immethodically 
by the round about means of force and labour. 1 

4. A tract on Turtle River and one or two town lots, for £1500. 

The price, aggregating £8000 sterling, would be made £6000 to one 
purchaser, and these figures we must remember, were for that period of 
desperate business depression which seemed the prelude of hopeless and 
indefinite anarchy. 

' Letter of Oct. 13, 1767. Gervais also tried hemp at Ninety-Six. The 
seed cost 60s. currency a bushel and the freight from Charleston 50s. a 
hundred pounds. ^ Letter of July 14, 1787. 3 1772. 

••Timothy Ford's MS. Diary, covering 1785-87, in the manuscripts of 
the S. C. Hist. Soc. For this passage, which appears to be for December, 
1785, I thank Miss Mabel Louise Webber, the Secretary of the Society. 
For further quotation and notice of Ford, see pp. 424-5, and 425, n, i. 



132 Life of Henry Laurens 

All which helps to explain why Mr. Laurens became one of 
the wealthiest men in the prosperous province of South Car- 
olina. But he hated indigo culture, he says in 1786, and will 
have no more of it about him. Perhaps this is partly the 
reason he resigned Mt. Tacitus to his son Henry about that 
time. The difficult character of the indigo culture as com- 
pared with cotton led to its gradual abandonment after the 
loss of the British bounty which had added to the planter's 
profits before the Revolution, not to speak of the effects of 
the invention of the gin in 1793. In 1786, his interest un- 
dulled by age, he was experimenting with the Chinese method 
of rice culture. 

The enrichment of the successful planter in the period from 
1730 to 1775 was very rapid, especially where he was so fortu- 
nate as to secure grants of good new lands whose productiveness 
went beyond expectation. Laurens writes, e. g., November 
14, 1768, that he will make at his Broughton Island plantation, 
though practically the first year of its being planted, four 
hundred barrels of rice (it came, however, to 450 barrels) and 
abundance of peas, corn, and potatoes, besides sawing lumber 
for buildings. In 1768 he killed sixty hogs at Mepkin. His 
practice being to raise nearly all his own food stuffs, the staple 
crops thus went almost entirely to profits; but some articles 
had to be purchased. Thus we find Laurens sending two barrels 
of salt fish to Mepkin (April 21, 1766), and again, 140 pounds 
of butter at a time — quantities which indicate that it was 
intended as food for the slaves. October 4, 1765, he sends 
150 sour oranges for sick negroes. About September the 
overseers were to send down to Charleston all the negroes' 
measures for shoes ^ for the coming winter, and a little later 
the tailor was sent to the plantation to cut the winter 
clothes. Baby clothes frequently went up from the city to 
the plantation.^ 

' Letter of Sept. 10, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

2 Laurens to Schad, Oct. i, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. There is 
some similarity of material here and in parts of Chapter V, where I gave 
a number of illustrations of Laurens's management of his slaves in order 
to illustrate his character. The primary purpose of the illustrations in 



Growth of Population and Industry 133 

The proper management of large numbers of slaves presented 
trying problems of tact and business efficiency. Though the 
details were necessarily left to a great extent to the overseer, 
Laurens himself held a close rein, as the following typical 
directions to a new overseer indicate: 

I have now to recommend to you the care of my negroes in general, but 
particularly the sick ones. Desire Mrs. White not to be sparing of red 
wine for those that have the flux or bad loosenesses; let them be well at- 
tended night and day and if one wench is not sufficient, add another to 
nurse them.' 

With the well ones use gentle means mixed with easy authority first — 
if that does not succeed, make choice of the most stubborn one or two and 
chastise them severely but properly and with mercy, that they may be 
convinced that the end of correction is to be amendment.^ 

General principles were not all; the letters are sprinkled 
with directions for deaHng with individuals by name, of which 
the following is a creditable instance : 

"You say you don't like him (a certain slave) , but remember 
he is a human creature whether you like him or not. "^ 

The "blind tiger" was abroad even in that early day, nor 
does it appear that we have as yet discovered any satisfactory 
substitute for the old way of dealing with him : 

Amos has a great inclination to turn rum merchant [Laurens writes 
his overseer]. If his confederate comes to that plantation, I charge you 
to discipline him with 39 soimd lashes and turn him out of the gate and 
see that he goes quite off. < 

Sly, smuggling negroes, often exercising leadership, were 
sometimes discipHned by being reduced from "patroon" of 
a boat or woman tending indigo vats or sheds to common 

the present chapter is rather to exhibit the life of the plantation than 
the character of the individual master. 

' Does this indicate a hospital or nursing in their own cabins ? 

" Laurens to new overseer at Mepkin, May 30, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. 
MSS. Such passages are numerous and often contain passages on the 
care of the health of slaves as detailed as a physician's prescription. 

3 Laurens to Schad, Aug. 23, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. Cj, in- 
stances in Chapter V. 

< Laurens to Schad, 30 April, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 



134 Life of Henry Laurens 

field hands — a treatment which the negro's pride of place 
still makes available to shrewd employers. The play of 
passion sometimes called for the sterner discipline of the 
magistrates and freeholders' court for slaves, as in the deadly 
jealousy between the sisters Isabel and Chloe, "both the wives 
of Mathias," but living on different plantations. The doctor 
said Chloe's sudden death was due to poison. Isabel had 
been heard to threaten the other woman, and the case was 
thoroughly investigated, though with what result does not 
appear. A very ancient and very modern bit of history.' 

How the humane master regarded the feelings of the slaves 
is illustrated by the following directions for moving a number : 

When you return to Wambaw order such six or eight of the negroes as 
you shall choose to march down to Fogartie's Ferry on the fourth day after 
you leave Wambaw, by which I mean that you shotdd be in town two or 
three days before them. It will be kind in you and quiet their minds much 
if you will see all their little estates packed up. Take an account of them 
and give the strongest assurances that each man's property shall be safely 
delivered to them and on that account if you pitch upon married men 
their wives will give an eye to their respective goods. ' 

This considerate treatment was repaid by his rarely having 
a runaway; but it must be remembered that he made it a 
point to sell unruly subjects. ^ 

' Laurens to Elias Ball, May 2, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

' Laurens to Rossel, April 8, 1766, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

3 Laurens to Joseph Brown, June 28, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 
The following odd letter to one of Laurens's overseers, though its charge of 
cruelty appears to have been false, shows what was thought of inhumanity 
to slaves: 

"Stono, 20th March, 1766. 
"Mr. Wiggins — 

"I am surprised you give your tongue a liberty to speak about me. I 
must only tell you your {sic) an impudent saucy fellow, and I shall tell 
you further if you dont behave in another manner, I shall gett you turned 
out of doors very soon. I am informed what a fine parcell of Company 
you keep, and must whip wenches till they miscarry. Let me give you a 
little advice keep a still tongue and mind your business. 
"I am your's &ca 

"John Jackson." 



Growth of Population and Industry 135 

The overseer was always a troublesome problem. The 
planters could hardly expect to keep very capable men at the 
wages paid. Laurens, acting for a friend, names £i8o to 
£240 currency^ and keep and passage for himself and family 
as wages for an overseer for a forty-negro place in East Florida, 
and again £280 with the same perquisites for apparently the 
same place. He found one at the price to which he was 
limited, but not the first-class man he desired.* A man who 
was capable of managing would soon respond to the splendid 
inducements offered by the times by setting up as planter on 
his own account. For instance, Laurens writes, January 22, 
1769, to Governor Grant that he is "at Mepkin plantation, 
where I have been for some days fixing a new overseer (the 
old one having grown rich and set up for himself.)"^ The 
employer used such prospects to tempt clever men, and 
taught them the road to prosperity by pointing out to one, 
e. g., how he might buy some negroes and let them to his 
employer for wages or on shares. " In that case he will be in 
a fair way to make a pretty livelihood and in a few years to 
do me great service and acquire an independence for himself."'* 

This businesslike merchant-planter held his overseers severe- 
ly to account for every bushel of corn, every hog, and its 
weight and price. Be "very careful and exact in your measure 
(of corn) — distinguish in your acct. (sic) the quantities of 
plantation corn, your corn, negroes corn separately." ^ 

After having assembled these vast estates and put their 
development well under way, Mr. Laurens, while still an 
active merchant, in 1766 or -7, was so modest as to say that he 
cannot be called rich, but is perhaps in a fair way to become 

Laurens's letter book in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS., p. 396. Loose talk seems 
to have been quite a common source of trouble. Laurens had to warn 
another overseer and his wife severely. — lb., April 9, 1766. 

' £1 currency =69^ cents. 

' Laurens to Joseph Brown, Jan. 13, March 31, and April 25, 1766, in 
Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

3 The parenthesis is Laurens's. 

■• Laurens to Joseph Brown, Oct. 4, 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

5 Laurens to Creamer, 25 Jan., 1765, in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 



136 Life of Henry Laurens 

so. Comfortable indeed must have been the situation of his 
brother James whom he describes as already rich. Yet 
among the great Carolina merchants and planters there were 
others more wealthy than these. The Revolution came on 
before he could fully develop the productiveness of his princely 
domains in Georgia. He says in 1787^ that but for the war 
he would have been too rich, with "at least 10,000 guineas 
clear from Altamaha and Turtle Rivers" alone, an amount 
equal to at least $75,000 of our present money. 

Prosperity and success were checkered with domestic afflic- 
tion. In both 1767 and 1768 he had the sorrow of losing a 
new-born infant. October 13, 1767, he says (and the next 
year also might have said essentially the same), "My poor 
old woman has been very sick, and this is the first of her 
appearance in the garden for near two months past." His 
ten-year-old daughter and his three boys of fifteen, six, and 
four years respectively were a great source of happiness. 
Of John, the oldest, he was very fond, and he thought with 
pride that one of his younger "sparks" had "more genius 
than is necessary to make a merchant." Worldly success 
was his so abundantly that he turned aside from two lucrative 
sources of becoming richer. By his fellow citizens he was 
universally respected and by many warmly beloved, all the 
more doubtless after the temporary loss of popularity on 
account of his bold adherence to his convictions in the Middle- 
ton-Grant affair and the Stamp Act troubles. The men who 
had abused him in 1761 and 1765, he says, were now, and 
without any special effort on his part, his friends, and by his 
sovereign he was offered honors he could afford to decline. 
Literature, society, and sincere religion rounded out the life 
of a man who was excessive in nothing — a right comfortable 
South Carolina gentleman. 

I Letter of June 30, 1787. 



CHAPTER XI 

TROUBLES WITH THE COURT OF VICE -ADMIRALTY, 1 767-68 

IT was during the period just described that Laurens fell 
afoul of the royal government in the persons of the customs 
officers and the Court of Vice- Admiralty. Parallel with the 
growing assertion of self-government by the people of the 
colony had gone a progressive degeneration in the character 
of the placemen sent out to fill the offices in the gift of the 
crown. In 1764 the vulgar and tyrannical Boone had sailed 
away with his mistress, practically driven out of the governor- 
ship by the Commons whom he had insulted and who in return 
had effectually exposed him before his masters ; the coarse and 
violent Skinner had likewise been driven from the Chief Jus- 
ticeship ; and a similar fate soon overtook several other place- 
men who mistook the character of the people over whom they 
had been sent to rule. 

In May, 1767, Laurens sent the Wambaw, a schooner of 
hardly fifteen tons burden, to carry tools and provisions from 
Charleston to his new Altamaha plantation, nine miles from 
Frederica. There was no port of customs officer nearer than 
forty miles of the plantation, and the road by which he might 
be reached was said to be in such a condition as to endanger 
the life of the traveler. The customs officer at Charleston, 
as was customary in such cases, allowed the schooner to depart 
without requiring a certificate of permission to sail or a bond 
that she should land her " non- enumerated " goods at an 
English port.^ (The reading of the footnote just cited will 

' The English law entimerated a number of articles which could be 
shipped from the colonies only to some other colonial or British port and 

137 



138 Life of Henry Laurens 

make clear what follows.) The Wambaw took on a load of 
shingles as ballast and returned to Charleston. Here she was 
immediately seized by George Roupell, Searcher of Customs, 
at the instigation of his chief, Daniel Moore, the Collector, and 
hailed before Judge Egerton Leigh, sole Judge of the Court of 
Vice-Admiralty, because she had not compUed with the law 
by giving bond before leaving Georgia, even though, as the 
Judge himself remarked, the Deputy had by allowing her to 
depart without that formality implied that she might return 
in the same way. 

The Searcher was mistaken, however; for Laurens, not 
intending to presume upon any leniency, had availed himself 
of the law which allowed bond to be given before a magistrate 
or ' ' two known British merchants ' ' where there was no custom- 
house, and had sent to Frederica, nine miles distant, and given 
the bond before two merchants, both of whom were also 
magistrates. The Collector, who was aiming to break the 
spirit of the Charleston merchants, offered to release the vessel 
if it were asked "as a great favour" — an offer which was re- 
fused. This failing, "a Hint was kindly given by to her 

Owner's Friends — that her Chastity might be preserved by 
slipping away in the Dark " — a proposal" which was indignantly 
spurned. 

The vessel would doubtless have been acquitted, in view of 
the fact that the shingles had been taken on as ballast, had not 
Laurens volunteered the statement that they were not for 
ballast only, but were intended, after serving this purpose, 
to be sold. Notwithstanding all these facts, furnishing ample 
ground for Laurens's statement that "a case more pregnant 
with circumstances of equity never did appear before any 

required bond to be given by the shipper, which would be forfeited if 
the goods should be landed contrary to law. The fraudulent shipping of 
enumerated goods under pretense of the ship's being in ballast or having 
on board only non-enumerated articles led, 1764-6, to acts requiring a 
"non-enumerated bond" also, as it was called, for non-entunerated goods 
and in one of the acts even for empty ships. See 4th Geo. III., Cap. xv., 
§§ 23, 24, 28; 5th Geo. III., Cap. xlv., §§ 25, 26, and 6th Geo. III., Cap. 
lii., §28. 



I 



Troubles with Court of Vice- Admiralty 139 

court," September i, 1767, the schooner was ordered sold, 
one-third of the proceeds going to the King, one-third to the 
Governor, and one-third to Mr. Roupell, and Laurens was re- 
quired in addition to pay all "the costs, charges, and expenses 
of this smt," which, including the judge's fee of £277, equaled 
almost £700 (currency, I presume), or 50% above the value of 
the vessel.^ 

Laurens's sense of injustice was intensified by the fact 
that a French smuggler who had been convicted a few days 
previously before Judge Leigh was freed from all costs and the 
wages of the sailors were paid out of the proceeds of the sale, 
"to the great discouragement of mariners to continue in the 
smuggling business, " Laurens remarked. 

But this was not all. Along with the trial of the Wambaw 
went that of the Broughton Island Packet, another vessel by 
which Laurens had sent provisions to the same plantation 
during the summer. She had returned with logs and chunks, 
thrown in solely for ballast. The judge declared that, "like 
the two Dromios — they came in together and they must stand 
or fall together"; but he later made a distinction because the 
shingle ballast in the Wambaw was to be sold, and exactly a 
week after condemning the Wambaw acquitted the Broughton 
Island Packet as having been seized "upon a frivolous pre- 
tense." The owner was ordered, however, to pay two-thirds 
of the costs and Roupell, who had unjustly libeled the vessel, 
one- third. The case left the Judge £216, 15s. to the good.* 

There were circumstances in the case which did not appear 
in the proceedings of the court. Moore and Roupell were as 
much chagrined at the clearing of the one vessel as was 
Laurens at the condemnation of the other; and herein lies a 
commentary on the character of the British placemen. Leigh 
held at this time by royal appointment the offices of Attorney 
General, Surveyor General, Member of the Council, and 

^Appendix to the Extracts, 51. 

^ lb. Leigh explained in the pamphlet controversy which followed in 
the next spring that he meant by the reference to the two Dromios no more 
than that the cases came in together in time and must be disposed of at the 
same time. 



140 Life of Henry Laurens 

Judge of Vice-Admiralty, and in addition he conducted a 
private law practice. Compromising situations were inevit- 
able, as occurred in the present instance. The disgruntled 
Mr. Moore stated openly that he had paid Judge Leigh for his 
legal opinion whether to seize the Broughton Island Packet 
and that Mr. Leigh advised that he should, and then as Judge 
astounded his client by acquitting the vessel and ordering 
his associate Roupell to pay one-third the costs — certainly a 
very poor return for a £50 fee. Nay, he freely declared that 
he would "overset the Judge." Moore misrepresented the 
facts in saying that the fee was for advice in this particular 
case, for, as Mr. Leigh explained and Laurens was generous 
enough to confirm , the fee was paid some time before as a 
retainer for general legal advice — an arrangement of at least 
questionable propriety against which Mr. Laurens strongly 
advised his then friend Leigh. A rather sorry situation for 
the Judge of Vice- Admiralty to have to explain, gven with the 
^ Jax standards of the eighteenth century. Laurens did not 
fail to suggest that in earning his fee as an attorney he 
advised the seizure of the ship in order to get also his fee 
as Judge. ^ 

These experiences of Laurens's were similar to the wrongs 
and extortions constantly inflicted upon merchants by Daniel 
Moore the Collector and Roupell the Searcher. He writes, 
September 5, 1767, to James Habersham, of Savannah, that 
the Collector was universally condemned and that he had 
caused more vexation to the merchants in the six months of his 
stay than all the King's officers since the beginning of the 
colony. He extorted illegal fees and when objection was made 
replied that he would defend himself in court with those fees : 
"I can sweat them at law with their own money." "Good 
God!" exclaims Laurens, "is it possible for free men to bear 

^ Even if Leigh's statement that his counsel to Moore was hypothetical 
and did not amount to advice to seize, his case is sttU bad enough. Leigh also 
asserted in his pamphlet The Man Unmasked, 43-4, that he had told Moore 
in accepting his fee that he could not advise him in admiralty cases or 
criminal cases, as in the former he must act as judge and in the latter as 
prosecutor. 



Troubles with Court of Vice-Admiralty 141 

this?" "Such officers," he continues, "are the most likely 
instruments to effect a disunion between the mother country 
and her American offspring." The abuses of a harsh commer- 
cial system were working their result. A man of conservatism, 
wealth, position, wide influence, than whom few could be less 
inclined to factiousness or rebellion, was speaking in 1767 of 
disunion as a possible result of a very real grievance. Writing 
again to Habersham on October 14th, Laurens maintains that 
this trouble is very significant. "There are," he says, "who 
would damn themselves to damn Americans." — "Americans, " 
let it be noted. 

Laurens was strongly urged by his fellow merchants to 
take the matter up with the ministry. The merchants accord- 
ingly, largely under his leadership, in October, 1767, forwarded 
to Charles Garth, the colonial Agent in London, to be presented 
to the ministry, a representation of the seizures and extor- 
tions of Moore. Though Laurens was able to deny that he 
was the author of the letter, he acknowledged that he was 
"closely engaged" in the matter and was one of the sub- 
scribers. Mr. Leigh, naturally quite willing to repay the turn 
of Mr. Moore, who had promised to "overset the Judge," 
even stooped to go privately to Mr. Laurens and recommend 
that the fact that the Grand Jury had just found a true"* bill 
for extortion be included in the merchants' paper, as "this 
will absolutely 'lay him upon his back.'" Laurens used 
the information, he tells us, with the same contempt for 
this betrayer of a fellow official as an officer feels for the 
deserter who brings him news of how to destroy the 
enemy. 

The personal side of the dispute with Moore took a rather lu- 
dicrous turn. Laurens was provoked by the old man's insolence 
' ' to twist his nose . ' ' This harmless ' ' unpremeditated ' ' assault 
before a company of gentlemen was very useful to Moore, who, 
glad of an excuse to flee from prosecution for his extortions, 
magnified it into an attack by a mob which compelled him 
to leave the city for safety. He sent Laurens a challenge, 
to which, however, he did not stand, and in this flight from 
the province "barely escaped with life from shipwreck on 



142 Life of Henry Laurens 

the Georgia coast."* In the summer of 1769 he was removed, 
thus adding another to the list of unjust officials whom the 
people of the little quasi-republic had driven from authority. 

But to return to Roupell. The seizure of Laurens's two 
vessels had been so plainly prompted by a spirit of revenge in 
an officer who, nettled by complaints, had boasted that he 
would be "sweating the merchants before the summer was 
over, " that Laurens sued for damages. In this comedy-farce 
of placemen, the same Mr. Leigh, who as Judge had declared 
Roupell's action to have been "upon a frivolous pretense," 
was found as the "transformed Judge " conducting his defense. 
Laurens was awarded £1400 damages, which Roupell was 
finally allowed to pay out of the public revenues.'' 

Roupell now harbored a still fiercer spirit of revenge and 
what he deemed a favorable opportunity soon occurred. In 
June, 1768, the ship Ann, owned by Laurens, William Fisher, 
the Quaker merchant of Philadelphia, and two English houses, ^ 
was loading with rice for Bristol. Laurens gave bond for the 
full cargo of rice and other enumerated articles and left for 
Georgia. During his absence the captain received on board 
a small quantity of rum, Madeira wine, cattle horns, and pink 
root, all non-enumerated goods. On being slyly informed of 
this by a fellow officer, Roupell, to affiict a merchant, refused to 
allow the oversight to be corrected, and exultingly declared that 
he would pay off the score of the damage verdict. The giving 
of bond after the loading of articles but before sailing was a 
regular practice countenanced by the wording of the law, and 
in fact had been done the day before in the case of Captain 
Maitland's ship; so that Roupell's action was scandalous in 
the extreme. Moreover it was the standing rule and practice 
that "when Bond is given for enumerated goods either in Brit- 
ain or here, " no bond was required for non-enumerated goods.'' 

^ Laurens to Fisher, Oct. 27, 1767, in Etting Collection in Hist. Soc. Penn. 
MSS. 

* Amount was finally paid out of "the American chest, " says Laurens. 

3 Laurens to Fisher, Aug. 8, 1768, in Etting Col. in Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

'^'La.nre.ns's Extracts, 21 and 22. On bond for non-enumerated goods, 
see note, p. 137, above. 



Troubles with Court of Vice-Admiralty 143 

Roupell's friend and associate, says Laurens, even offered to 
secure the release of the Ann if Laurens would surrender his 
verdict for £1400 — a rascally bargain with which he of course 
refused to have anything to do. 

The case accordingly went into court. So notorious was the 
officer's motive that Judge Leigh took the very unusual course 
of forcing him, on pain of dismissing the suit, to take the 
"oath of calumny," an ancient and almost entirely unused 
form disclaiming any motive of malice. With shame depicted 
in every feature, Roupell stooped to this, and the case pro- 
ceeded, only to the increase of his humiliation. The Judge 
eulogized Col. Laurens's integrity and expressed the opinion 
that the vessel had been "trepaned, " and that there was 
"strong suspicion that there was more design and surprise 
on the part of some officers than of any intention of committing 
a fraud on the part of the claimant." Nevertheless the 
innocent owners were ordered to pay £100 sterling costs, about 
a fifth part of which went for the thrifty Judge's fee. Though 
castigating Roupell in open court, Judge Leigh did not fail to 
protect him by taking from Laurens and his partners their 
legal remedy of a suit for damages by certificating that the 
officer had acted justly and on probable cause. ^ Well might 
Laurens remark : 

This last act of the Judge's proceedings, added to his Honor's total 
neglect of the Deputy Collector's untrue and evasive deposition, must 
increase the abhorrence of American subjects against the establishment 
and jurisdiction of courts of Vice-Admiralty in their present extent. . . . 
What claimant and owner, conscious of their own integrity, acquitted from 
all suspicion of fraud, "trepaned" and "surprised" by the custom house 
officers, thus cunningly dismissed with compliments upon their conduct 
and characters, with partial restitution, exorbitant fees, and with effectual 
bar against recovering satisfaction for damages, could refrain from express- 
ing the highest dissatisfaction at the proceedings and final sentence of a 
double minded judge thus greedily running after the error of Balaam^; 

^ Laurens cites cases of the same and other kinds in which Leigh as Judge 
protected his fellow-placemen from their just responsibility, one being 
supported by the testimony of the eminent merchants Gabriel Manigault 
and John NeufviUe. 

^ See Numbers, xxii-iv., where Balaam struggles between the duty to 



144 Life of Henry Laurens 

or coidd forbear complaining as we complain against Judge and officers 
all, who, jugglers like, trick us and trick one another!' 

Laurens and Leigh had been close friends, though the 
former's esteem for the Judge had suffered two severe shocks 
before this final rupture. One has been described in connec- 
tion with the fee from Moore to Leigh, of which Laurens, 
whose opinion Leigh asked, so strongly disapproved. Leigh's 
other and more serious offense was his selfish and insincere 
conduct regarding the Circuit Court bill which had been in agi- 
tation for several years. When the bill was changed to raise 
the clerk's salary, Leigh (acting this time in his r6le of 
Attorney General) threatened over his signature and in con- 
versation to secure the defeat of the measure in England if 
his salary was not similarly raised. Truly, as Laurens warned 
him, if he should for such a reason plunge half the province 
back into the perils from which it was about to be delivered, 
he would "be held in everlasting detestation." When he was 
forced to give up his judgeship in 1768 it was so much the more 
urgent that he should make up his loss in another direction, 
and accordingly the manuscript copy of the act of 1769 in the 
British Public Record Office shows his salary as £500 sterHng 
— two and a half times what the Assembly's intention was at 
first. ^ It was unavoidable that after this, followed as it was by 
Leigh's " whispering about in different Places, that 'the Circuit 
Court Bill through his means wotdd probably obtain the Royal 

speak the truth as the divine spirit commands and his desire to earn the 
gold of Balak by prophesying falsely. 

' This account, except as indicated in the footnotes, is based upon 
Laurens's pamphlet. Extracts from the Proceedings of the Court of Vice- 
Admiralty in Charlestown, S. C, 2d edition; Leigh's reply. The Man Un- 
masked, etc. ; Laurens's rejoinder. Appendix to the Extracts, etc., and the 5. C. 
Gazette of Jtme 20, 1768. I found the Extracts, 2d edition, only in the 
Charleston Library Society; The Man Unmasked in the Congressional 
Library and in the Charleston Library Society, and the Appendix — 
author's presentation copy, but not to the library — only in the American 
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. 

= The S. C. records do not contain this act; the Statutes at Large by an 
error contain the vetoed bill of 1768, and Grimke's Laws, which gives the 
correct act, omits some of the sections as of no effect in his time. 



Troubles with Court of Vice-Admiralty 145 

Assent, ' " Laurens should, as he tells us, have lost all respect 
for Leigh and have assumed an entirely passive attitude in 
their relations. The public break between the men was not, 
as has always been represented, simply the result of Laurens's 
chagrin at the Admiralty decisions. 

The case of the Ann converted the coolness into an open 
breach. After this decision, Laurens asked the Judge that 
publishing an abstract of the case might not be considered a 
contempt of court. Leigh answered that he had no objection, 
provided Laurens would state that he did it solely to vindi- 
cate his own character; to which Laurens replied that, his 
character not having been impeached, it could not be supposed 
that to vindicate it would be his sole object. At this Leigh 
lost his temper and spoke of his power to ruin whole families 
and threatened to transfer his critic from the pleasant breezes 
of Ansonboro to the discomforts of the common jail, but ended 
by contemptuously telling him to publish what he pleased. 

Laurens compiled the facts from the records. The part 
relating to the Ann he sent to his friend Fisher in Philadel- 
phia, a joint owner, with an able paper entitled, "Some General 
Observations on American custom house officers and Courts 
of Vice- Admiralty, " with directions to publish such parts as 
he saw fit. Attorney General Benjamin Chew of Pennsylvania 
and a number of leading lawyers in Philadelphia agreed with 
his remarks and recommended that Leigh should be exposed, 
and even Chief Justice William Allen of that province re- 
marked upon the manuscript "that in his opinion the J — ge 
did not stand very clear.'' ^ On such advice Fisher printed 
the Observations and parts of the Extracts. Laurens held 
his manuscript for five months until, late in February, 1769, 
convinced by the opinions of Chew, Allen, and many others, 
that it was not merely the expression of personal pique, he 
pubUshed it in pamphlet form as Extracts from the Proceedings 

' Laurens's MS. letters to Fisher in Etting Col. in Hist. Soc. of Penn, 
library, and Appendix to Extracts. Mr. Ernest Spoflford of that library- 
writes me that in 1768 the Attorney General of Pennsylvania was Benjamin 
Chew and the Chief Justice William AUen. Laurens simply gives the name 
as Chew. 



y 



146 Life of Henry Laurens 

of the Court of Vice- Admiralty . ^ Leigh replied, March 30, 
in a smoothly written but weak defense, The Man Unmasked. 
The Observations having arrived from Philadelphia in print, 
Laurens in April ^ pubHshed an enlarged edition of his Ex- 
tracts with the Observations somewhat expanded, which he 
announced in a scurrilous advertisement. "Our Bilingnous 
J — e, " guilty of "falsehood, meanness, and treachery, even 
to a barefaced — — deliberately and solemnly pronounced from 
the Bench for the truth," as Laurens proclaimed him in 
print, dared not sue him, he boasted, for fear of having the 
charges confirmed by a jury; but he disclaims any design "to 
follow that pole cat (and here those who desire his exact 
description of that animal, created chiefly, it appears, as a 
figure of contempt for fiery controversialists, must resort to 
the original newspaper) through all the filth exhibited in his 
scurrilous performance," for whom "The discipline of New 
Market" would be appropriate.^ 

About the first of July he fired another shot at Leigh in 
his Appendix to the Extracts from the Proceedings of the 
Court of Vice- Admiralty.^ In this he refuses to acquit 
the Judge of being "more a fool" and convicts him, to his own 
satisfaction, of being a malicious vendor in "that 'immodest 
thing' a Lie," and concludes his review of his opponent's 
inconsistencies with the observation that "A fool and his 
words are soon parted." 

In the spring of 1769 the inevitable challenge passed, but 
before the time of meeting Leigh excused himself because he 

' Leigh in The Man Unmasked, pp. 118 and 150, fixed the date of the 
first edition of Laurens's Extracts as Feb. 23, 1769. Leigh had already 
ceased to be Judge, as will appear below, and hence could not pionish Laurens 
for contempt, as some writers wonder at his not doing. It does not appear 
that Laurens's delay in printing was due to apprehension of punishment, 
however; for he waited several months after the resignation. 

» Laurens's Appendix, 36. 

3 S. C. Gazette, May 25, 1769. Laurens wrote to a friend that had he 
not sent his copy to the printer so hurriedly he would have omitted the 
words "Billingsgate" and "polecat." 

"Laurens to Fisher, June 26, 1769, in Etting MSS., Hist. Soc. 
Penn. 



Troubles with Court of Vice-Admiralty 147 

had been bound over to keep the peace, having applied, as 
Laurens sneered, to a very punctilious justice of the quorum 
to act as his second, as though seeking to be restrained. 

The matter having turned to questions of personal integ- 
rity, Leigh refused to accept the fees in the cases of Laurens's 
vessels. Laurens in turn declined to derive a pecuniary bene- 
fit from his efforts in behalf of American rights, and so donated 
the amount, £480, 5 shillings currency to the South Carolina 
Society. ^ 

What remains of the personal incidents may be briefly con-^ 
eluded. Before printing, Laurens had already sent his account f^^ 
to influential persons in England, who exercised themselves for 
Leigh's removal, and the aggrieved Collector Moore had also 
sworn "to overset the Judge." The ministry acted with sur- 
prising promptness in stating to the plural office-holder that he 
must give up either his position on the bench or as Attorney 
General, and as early as November 9, 1768, Laurens was able 
to sneer at the "late Judge in his voluntary resignation all in a 
hurry." He was a greedy, coarse, and filthy wretch, more 
unsavory than his unsavory father who discredited the South 
Carolina bench before him and to whose disreputable 
connections which secured his appointment Christopher 
Gadsden did not hesitate to call attention (1767) in open 
Assembly.' In driving the second Judge Leigh from the 
bench, Laurens furnished another proof of the power of the 
province in its own government. 

Laurens sent his pamphlet, with long, earnest letters, to 
his correspondents in America, the West Indies, and England. 
I have "sent copies, " he writes, March 4, 1769, 

to many of the Carolina mercliants, . . . the Customs House, the Treasury, 
the Board of Trade, and to several great personages, naves, fellies, and 
spokes in the grand governmental wheel. These, or some of these I am sure 
will perceive that they are turning upon a bad axis that common greasing \ 
wiU not answer the purpose long ; there must actually be repair and amend- j 
ment performed or the machine will very soon tumble to pieces. 

^ Laurens's letter to the Society, Sept. 19, 1769. 

* Laurens's Appendix to Extracts, 20. On the elder Leigh's character, 
see above, p. 103, n. 3. 



/ 



148 Life of Henry Laurens 

He was thoroughly aroused, but more strongly, he says, 
because particularly at the present critical juncture of affairs 
the matter was of the utmost importance to all America. He 
was outraged at the petty tyranny of customs officers, for 
some of whom, he declares, nothing but a halter will do ; and 
more so at the conduct of Vice- Admiralty courts, within whose 
disposal men's property lay at the discretion of a single judge 
without a jury. Laurens, being warm and quick by nature, 
as well as disciplined and systematic, felt hot anger too. 
Throughout he bore himself as the representative of a just 
and worthy cause, a cause which Chatham, Burke, and the 
Continental Congress were later to take up in attempting 
to remedy what they considered one of the most material 
grievances of the colonies.^ Not only was he deeply moved 
to the defense of American rights in this clash with the customs 
officers and courts, but it was the first time that his emotions 
were deeply stirred for American as distinct from British 
liberty. To Thomas Smith, of London, he wrote, August 8, 
1769: 

Gentlemen may look upon this matter as the effect of a quarrel between 
Mr. Leigh and Mr. Laurens; but they are quite mistaken who think so. If 
nothing but my own interest or nothing but resentment had prompted me 
to write, my pen should have been otherwise employed than to gratify 
either; but I tell you the enormous created powers vested in an American 
Court of Vice-Admiralty threatens future generations in America with a 
curse tenfold worse than the stamp act; [and he urges that Parliament 
should provide trials by jury or at least assistant judges]. 

To Governor James Grant, of Florida, he wrote, January 
22, 1769, in promising soon to send a copy of the matter in 
print, this 

will contain a better answer to your Excellency's observations upon troops, 
Liberty Boys, American disputes, violent measures, &c. , than any that I can 
just now offer. If Great Britain would fix a pack upon the unbroken steed 
she should at least have employed skillful hands to make the first attempt 
to put it on the timorous creature. The wretches employed to carry the 
grievous laws into execution — I mean the pilfering and most grievous parts 
of them — are justly complained of everywhere — here, from the Deputy 

' Lecky, vi., 167-8. 



Troubles with Court of Vice-Admiralty 149 

Collector downwards to a man. They are strongly described by the 
character of those miscreants who were driven out of the Temple by Jesus 
with a scourge of small cords. 

The incident sUrred the community deeply and is not to be 
discounted in summing up the causes which prepared the 
people of the coast country for separation from England. It 
fitted so aptly with the Boone contest, the Stamp Act excite- 
ment, and the conflicts which were to occupy the next six 
years as to form part of a steady drifting towards independence 
in which the assertion of Carolinian as distinct from general 
American liberties played so large a part. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE TOWNSHEND LAWS AND NON-IMPORTATION, I767-70 

WHILE the vexatious prosecutions detailed in the last 
chapter were occurring in South Carolina, illustrating 
the working of the English control of colonial commerce, the 
system was being made more drastic and extensive by the 
passage of Charles Townshend's measures of taxation and 
coercion. The way in which this daring and brilliant politi- 
cian usurped the leadership of the ministry forms a dramatic 
and disastrous episode in English history. Pitt in 1766 had 
formed a ministry with Conway as Secretary of State, Camden 
as Lord Chancellor, and Shelburne as the Secretary of State 
in charge of the colonies, all strong friends of America. With 
these was associated as Chancellor of the Exchequer the most 
erratic, and one of the most brilliant, of the parliamentary 
leaders, Charles Townshend. Pitt, in failing health and trans- 
lated as the Earl of Chatham to the House of Lords, was 
soon incapacitated even to correspond from his sick room with 
his colleagues. Grafton, to whom he passed his authority in 
the spring of 1767, was unable to cope with a subordinate of 
the ambition, eloquence, and popularity of Townshend, who, 
seizing the opportunity to usurp the leadership, with contemp- 
tuous disregard of his colleagues launched before a delighted 
House of Commons his plan of raising a revenue in America 
and coercing malcontents into submission. His colleagues, 
embarrassed and cowed, unable to expel him and too timid to 
resign, allowed him, by a series of measures of which they 
disapproved, to commit the government to a policy which 
they were convinced would lead to disaster. 

150 



Townshend Laws and Non-Importation 151 

In 1767 Townshend introduced his measures for imposing 
import duties in America on glass, paper, painters' colors, 
red and white lead, and tea, and for enforcing vigorously the 
commercial laws. The subsequent history is familiar. Non- 
importation agreements were early formed in New England 
and New York and intercolonial correspondence and co- 
operation were revived in a much more formidable extent 
than during the Stamp Act agitation. 

February 11, 1768, the lower house of the Massachusetts 
legislature dispatched through their Speaker a circular letter 
to the Speakers of every other colonial Assembly, expressing 
their conviction of the unconstitutional character of Parlia- 
mentary taxation of America and inviting cooperation in 
securing its abandonment. The Virginia House of Burgesses 
took up the cause and in like manner addressed the sister 
colonies. These letters were received by Peter Manigault, 
Speaker of the South Carolina Commons House, and were 
presented to the newly elected Assembly in November, 1768. 
Before receiving these appeals the South Carolina Commons 
had taken another mode of redress by directing Charles 
Garth, their Agent in London, to cooperate in every way with 
the other colonial agents for repeal. Further than this there 
had appeared up to this time no tendency to go. It is interest- 
ing to note, however, that there had been clearly discernible 
in the politics of the province for many years two roughly 
defined groups of progressives and conservatives. Their 
alignment into hostile camps under the impulse of British 
aggression was only carrying towards their logical conclusion 
forces whose conflicts had made up much of the history of the 
province since its origin. The rank and file of the progressives 1 
were made up largely of the city mechanics ; but they had the 
advantage of the brilliant and daring leadership of the planters 
Thomas Lynch, Rawlins Lowndes, George Gabriel Powell,* 
the lawyers James Parsons and John and Edward Rutledge, ^ 

' Colonel Powell appears to have been a planter, but I must say that I 
am not positive as to this. 

' Though John Rutledge later became the mainstay of the conservatives 
when the issue was changed to separation from England, he now acted 



152 Life of Henry Laurens 

and above all of the merchant Christopher Gadsden, The 
wealthy merchants and landowners fell naturally into the 
more conservative group. Their prominent representatives, de- 
voted to colonial liberty, but more moderate in their methods, 
were Peter Manigault, Henry Laiirens, Charles Pinckney, 
William Wragg and the impetuous young William Henry 
Drayton, all noble alike in character and intellect. 

Laurens, though by both nature and training a conservative, 
had always opposed by constitutional means all aggressions 
upon the rights of America. His tendency to support the gov- 
ernment unless forced conscientiously into opposition is shown 
by his saying, February 27, 1768, when the not very competent 
Montagu was executive and the Council was far gone down- 
wards, that we have a very good Governor, '^ a very good House 
of Assembly, and the Council were always good"; and we 
recall his impatience with radicals like Gadsden. Though 
always by constitutional means opposing aggressions, he had 
never until his experience of 1767-8 with the Court of Vice- 
Admiralty known what it was to feel the deep fires of indigna- 
tion against violations of American liberty. From that time 
on he thought and said such things as he had never said before. 
It was for him the birth of a new Americanism. Of the recent 
aggressions of Townshend through the medium of the com- 
mercial system he wrote, almost like a Gadsden or an Adams : 

The cloud is gathering thick in the north and will soon spread over 
America if not dispelled by wise measures in Britain. New England is in 
arms; New York slumbers but will not sleep if there shall be a necessity 
for her appearance. Pennsylvania is divided, but the most powerful part 
is on the side of liberty. Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina are 
confirmed in their principles declared in 1 745 ' and wUl support them in 
1768. South Carolina and Georgia, weakest sisters, will not subscribe 
to the right of a British Parliament to lay internal taxes upon America, 
and though feeble, have gathered strength among themselves — will be 
keen in asserting their liberty and sullenly and stubbornly resist against 
all ministerial mandates and admonitions. Men of war and troops are 
actually arrived at Boston and a few days more will inform us how they are 

with the advanced party. Instances appear of two and three changes of 
relative position among the leaders of the period as the situation changed. 
' Error doubtless for 1765. 



Townshend Laws and Non-Importation 153 

received by the people of Massachusetts. I think Governor Bernard is 
caught in a snare. He had certainly a difficult task to perform, but he has 
not discovered either a good heart or an unfathomable depth of policy. 
I have some doubts of the safety of his person. ^ 

Writing, May 29, 1769, Laurens says: 

I never heard of so diabolical project in aU history as that of abandoning 
us "to run into confusion for want of Assemblies"; it can never be so; that 
report must be the maggot of some pseudo-poUtician out of doors. ' 

The inner mental history being enacted with Henry Laurens 
is typical. All up and down America England was dissolving 
the devoted attachment to her of the best friends of conserva- 
tive, orderly, constitutional liberty — men who loathed every 
form of lawless riot, but who hated still more every encroach- 
ment upon their freedom and self-government. 

The division of the South Carolinians into progressives and 
conservatives was illustrated by the attempt of the former to 
control the October, 1768, election in the two Charleston 
parishes by means of a well-organized "primary'-" for nomi- 
nating their candidates. The mechanics, who, like the mer- 
chants and the planters, had come to be regarded as a distinct 
faction, at a great mass meeting on October ist named by 
popular vote their candidates for the election which was to 
occur on the 6th and 7th and thus attempted to rally their 
whole strength to a prearranged party ticket. "To-day," 
writes Laurens to his old friend Governor Grant, "a grand 
barbecue is given by a very grand simpleton, ^ at which the 
members for Charles Town are to be determined upon. There- 
fore if you hear that I am no longer a Parliament man, let not 
your Excellency wonder; for I walk in the old road, give no 
barbecue, nor ask any man for votes." 

" Laurens to Mcintosh, Oct. 15, 1768. 

'^ "Bernard had hinted that instructions might be given to forbid the 
calling of the Assembly even at its annual period in May; and to reduce the 
province to submission by the indefinite suspension of its legislature." — 
Bancroft, vi., 194. 

3 1 can hardly doubt that Christopher Gadsden, Laurens's aversion and 
the favorite of the mechanics, was the "very grand simpleton" who gave 
the barbecue. 



154 Life of Henry Laurens 

The nominations having been made at "Liberty Point, " the 
party "removed" to the noble oak in Mr. Mazyck's pasture, 
which they proceeded formally to dedicate "the Liberty Tree, " 
because of a company of twenty-six having pledged them- 
selves there in the fall of 1766 to the defense of American 
liberty. They then partook of the barbecue, "provided, it 
seems, by some of the candidates," says McCrady, toasted 
"The glorious ninety-two anti-rescinders of Massachusetts 
Bay," and urged the South Carolina Assembly for whose 
election they were preparing to stand true.^ Laurens was 
placed in nomination in the primary, but was defeated. 
Nevertheless at the regular election he was successful, and 
was even able to give up twenty of his supporters to help a 
friend. In the aristocratic up-town section of St. Philip's 
two-thirds of the mechanics' ticket were defeated; in St. 
Michael's two-thirds were elected. 

The platform of the advanced party in South Carolina 
included the defense of the liberty of the subjects of the crown 
in England as well as in America. They opposed any violation 
of constitutional freedom as calculated to lead to the subver- 
sion of the liberties of all the inhabitants of the empire. They ' 
therefore felt a strong interest in the cause of freedom of 
speech and election as represented in the person, as the 
extremer ones expressed it, of "that intrepid patriot John 
Wilkes." Wilkes was a vulgar fellow personally unworthy to 
represent any good or great cause, but this was an accident 
which the South Carolinians would not allow to obscure the 
essential principles at issue. "Club No. 45" was organized 
in Charleston and carried on a regular propaganda. In the 
celebrations of "the friends of liberty" during the exciting 
years following in 1768, 45, drawn from the number of the 
North Briton for the publication of which Wilkes was 
prosecuted, was always joined with those others, 92 and 26, 
indicating respectively the Massachusetts representatives 
who voted against rescinding the February circular letter 
opposing Parliamentary taxation and the South Carolina 
Commons who supported them. Forty-five lights, forty-five 

' McCrady, ii., 604; S. C. Gazette, Oct. 3-10, 1768. 



Townshend Laws and Non-Importation 155 

bowls of punch, ninety-two glasses, and twenty-six toasts 
served to remind the convivial patriots of the principles for 
which, as the occasion demanded, they either stood or rolled 
under the table. 

The new Assembly met November 16, 1768. Governor 
Montagu, in obedience to the instructions to the executives of 
all the colonies, urged the Commons that, should they receive 
any paper having the smallest tendency towards unwarranted 
combinations or opposition to the authority of Parliament or 
King, they would treat it with the contempt it deserved. The 
Governor's address and the circular letters from Massachu- 
setts and Virginia were referred to committees consisting in 
both instances of Messrs. Parsons, Gadsden, Laurens, Pinck- 
ney, Rutledge, Lloyd, Elliot, Lynch, and Dart.^ On the 19th 
they reported that the House would certainly treat any letter 
or paper in the least opposing the just authority of Parliament 
or tending to inflame the minds of the colonists against their 
sovereign with the contempt it deserved, but that no paper 
having the slightest tendency in this direction had come to 
their attention. The circular letters were endorsed as "re- 
plete with duty and loyalty to His Majesty, respect for the 
Parliament of Great Britain, sincere affection for our Mother 
Country, tender care for the preservation of the rights of all 
His Majesty's subjects, and founded upon undeniable Con- 
stitutional Principles, " and addresses in this sense to the King 
and Massachusetts and Virginia were recommended.^ The 
Commons ordered that all the papers, resolutions, etc., be 
published. Hardly was this resolution taken, by the unani- 
mous vote of the twenty-six members present, when the 
Governor indignantly dissolved the Assembly.^ Another 

'Smith, 362. '^ 76., 363. 

3 Gen. McCrady supposes that the sentiment of the Assembly was in 
fact not truly represented by this vote and bases his opinion upon the facts 
that there were only twenty-six of the forty-five members elected present, 
that they represented the city and neighboring parishes, that their action 
was so vociferously applauded, and that Speaker Manigault alludes in his 
letter to Speaker Gushing to "the minority." These doubts do not appear 
to me to be well grounded. As Gen. McCrady says, "the Commons were 
seldom prompt in forming a House." He might have added that even 



156 Life of Henry Laurens 

was elected in the following March, but was not allowed to 
meet until June. 

The form taken by the opposition to the Townshend revenue 
acts was a non-importation association. The Boston town 
meeting on October 26, 1767, adopted resolutions to this 
end and other colonies followed ; but little was accomplished 
until the year 1769. In May of that year Virginia adopted 
the plan and on July 3d, South Carolina. On that day the 
mechanics of Charleston met at Liberty Tree and the mer- 
chants at Dillon's tavern and adopted the following which 
was to be circulated throughout the province for signatures : 

That until the repeal of the unjust acts of Parliament the 
signers would abide by the following resolutions: 

First, the use of American, and particularly South Carolina, 
manufactures should be promoted to the utmost. 

Second, except goods already ordered, nothing should be 
imported from England besides negro cloth, duffle blankets, 
osnaburgs, plantation and workmen's tools, powder, lead, 
shot, wool, cards, card ware, printed books, and pamphlets. 

Third, the utmost economy should be practiced. 

Fourth, non-signers were to be boycotted and treated as no 
friends of the colony.^ 

On July 22d non-importation was extended to all goods 
from any country whatever, negroes were added to the 
forbidden list, and a committee of thirty-nine, representing 
equally the merchants, planters, and mechanics, was appointed 
to enforce the agreement. 

Laurens, helped doubtless by the change of heart he had 
experienced in 1768, fully approved of this system of non- 
importation. Being strongly imbued with respect for law, he 
condemned the rioting and other violence by which the opposi- 
tion to the Stamp Act had been so largely conducted, and 

in the case of the next House, elected under the stress of unusual excitement, 
they were adjourned from the 15th to the 26th of June for lack of a quorum. 
That there was some dissent in the province is certain, but the feebleness 
of the opposition rallied by Wragg and Drayton would seem to be a more 
accurate measure of its extent than the enthusiasm of the majority. 
' McCrady, ii., 646. 



Townshend Laws and Non-Importation 157 

always urged instead peaceful petitions and commercial non- 
intercourse. This policy involved the sacrifice of his interests 
as a merchant, but he preferred it to the rule of the mob. 
September 10, 1770, after he had time to observe the dis- 
advantages and hardships of the scheme, he wrote to Richard 
Oswald approving it as constitutional resistance to the un- 
constitutional measures of the ministry and contrasting it 
favorably with the lawlessness of 1765; and England, he 
continues, must repeal, not only the tea duty, but all the 
grievous acts. He was chosen to preside at the mass meeting 
under the Liberty Tree for enforcing the agreement. May 14, 
1770, and again at the great final meeting at the same place, 
December 13th following, when South Carolina, the last 
colony to abandon the plan, found it necessary to give up 
non-importation except as to tea.^ Until his departure for 
England in 1771 Laurens was continually warning his English 
correspondents that unless the mother country receded from 
her position, most serious consequences would ensue. But 
we must remember that no more in this matter than in others 
was Laurens of the extreme or violent faction. His well- 
known character for law-abiding moderation marked him as 
not suitable for the rough-shod methods, so often mingled with 
heartless injustice, of the actual enforcement of the non- 
importation rules. When seeking in 1781 to represent his 
attitude as having been as little offensive as possible to Eng- 
land, he wrote of himself : 

Although he enjoyed the universal esteem of the people as an honest 
Man and was class'd among the most wealthy, he was not held to be a fit 
person in any Committee for enforcing these Resolutions. "He was a 
King's Man and had a predilection to Great Britain."* 

It is true that the non-importation association was very 
ineffectual and that its enforcement was sometimes unfair 
towards the weak, and cringing towards the strong ; but still, 
I think, the plan has been too much disparaged. New York 

' McCrady, ii., 668 and 679. 

' Laurens's petition to Ministry, June 23, 1781; given below in Chapter 
XXIV. 



158 Life of Henry Laurens 

was estimated to have cut down five-sixths of her imports, 
New England and Pennsylvania one-half, while it was 
asserted in Parliament that the Southern colonies had actually- 
increased their importations. However, the exports to the 
colonies dropped from £2,378,000 in 1768 to £1,634,000 in 
1769,^ and this loss, together with the danger to the empire 
of such an organized agitation against the policy of Parliament, 
was very largely instrumental in securing the repeal of all the 
duties except that on tea. Neither should it be forgotten 
that the attempt at economic independence and the preserva- 
tion of local rights was a strong influence in promoting the 
movement in South Carolina in 1769-70 for a system of 
schools and colleges and in an effort at the same period 
to establish the mantifacture of flour. Moreover the or- 
ganization, correspondence, and habit of concerted common 
action by which it was conducted were among the most 
valuable preparations of the people for the more difficult task 
of later carrying through a successful revolution without the 
overthrow of orderly government. What the Americans could 
best have done had they not used non-importation as a means 
to their end and what in that case would have been the result, 
is very difficult to say ; but, taken all in all, it is not easy to 
prove that any better policy was feasible. 

' Lecky, iv., 135. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE WILKES FUND DISPUTE AND THE ALIENATION OF SOUTH 
CAROLINA FROM THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT, 1 769-74 

AS we have already seen, there was another subject of 
popular enthusiasm intimately connected in South 
Carolina with the non-importation agitation, namely the 
cause of a free press, free elections, and popular self-govern- 
ment as represented in the issues of the John Wilkes case. 
The Wilkes fund dispute, extending from 1769 to the out- 
break of the Revolution, constitutes one of the most important 
incidents in the constitutional history of South Carolina 
and demands explanation in all its phases. Familiar as his 
history is, it is necessary here to recall briefly how Wilkes came 
to be so prominently connected with the struggle for constitu- 
tional government in England and also in South Carolina. 
Wilkes lived during a period when public and private morals 
in England were at a low level. He was a man of courage, 
coolness, love of liberty, and withal of rather keen intelligence. 
Perhaps he would have been a bad man in any age; certainly 
he was a thorough representative of the most filthy stratum of 
the fast society of his time. But despite all this, "he became, " 
says Green, "^ "the chief instrument in bringing about three 
of the greatest advances which our constitution has made." 
In 1763, being then a member of Parliament, he published in 
No. 45 of the North Briton a criticism of the King's speech 
at the closing of Parliament, an utterance which for years it 
had been the custom to regard and criticize as the utterance 

' History oj the English People, iv., 215. 

159 



i6o Life of Henry Laurens 

of the Prime Minister. But George III. was just then getting 
under way his plan of reestablishing the personal authority 
of the sovereign which had been lost at the expulsion of 
the Stuarts. He therefore determined to punish Wilkes for 
criminal libel. From first to last the government grossly 
violated the most dearly bought rights of Englishmen in its i 
determination to crush this personal enemy of the King and j. 
so made him the hero and rallying point for constitutional 
liberty. At the King's order a Secretary of State issued a 
general warrant for the arrest of "the authors, printers and 
publishers" of the offending paper. After being closely con- 
fined in the Tower and denied consultation with his lawyer, 
Wilkes finally succeeded in appearing before the Court of 
Common Pleas on a writ of habeas corpus. His arrest was 
declared illegal by the entire bench, and the court decided three 
important points, all in Wilkes's favor : first, that the privilege of 
a member of Parliament protected him from arrest during the 
session except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace, none 
of which a libel could be called; second, that "warrants to 
search for, seize, and carry away papers" on a charge of libel 
were illegal ; and third, that general warrants not naming the 
person to be arrested were illegal.^ Defeated in the courts, 
the King, by means of his subservient party in Parliament, 
secured Wilkes's expulsion from the House of Commons. A 
prosecution for blasphemy was instituted, based upon an 
indecent poem of which Wilkes had printed about a dozen 
copies for private circulation, the existence of which had 
been discovered from the papers illegally seized and a copy 
afterwards obtained by bribery. The suit for libel was also 
renewed. Wilkes, absent in France, was convicted on both 
charges, and since he did not appear to receive sentence, was 
declared an outlaw. Popular feeling was deeply aroused by 
the tyrannous and unlawful conduct of the ministry and an 
easy career opened for Wilkes. In 1768 he returned to Eng- 
land and was triumphantly elected to Parliament for Middle- 
sex. A few days later the sentence of outlawry was declared 
illegal by Lord Mansfield on technical grounds and Wilkes 

' Lecky, iii.. 247. 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute i6i 

received his sentence of twenty-two months' imprisonment 
and £1000 fine. 

Popular fury, rendered dangerous by long-continued coarse- 
ness of society and incompetence of government, now rose 
almost to the point of revolution; the lives of the ministers 
were in jeopardy, and obscene and scurrilous lampoons upon 
members of the royal family became the order of the day. 
Lord Mansfield feared rebellion in ten days, and Franklin 
said that "if Wilkes had possessed a good character and the 
King a bad one, Wilkes would have driven George III. from 
the throne." 

But for the determination of George III. to pursue the man 
who had dared to criticize his policy, Wilkes would now have 
been left to serve his sentence and resume his seat in Parlia- 
ment; but the King ordered that he should be crushed.^ 
Accordingly, on February 3, 1769, he was a second time 
expelled. On the i6th he was unanimously reelected from 
Middlesex, and was the next day declared incapable of sit- 
ting in the existing Parliament. March i6th he was again 
unanimously reelected, but was refused admission. The Gov- 
ernment now induced Colonel Luttrell to run against him. 
LuttreU received 296 votes and Wilkes 1143, the Middlesex 
electors thus for the fourth time asserting their determination 
to have a representative of their own choice. 

Wilkes's cause was taken up by Chatham and others of the 
most prominent statesmen in the country. He was elected 
successively alderman of London, Sheriff, Lord Mayor, and 
finally in 1774, again member of Parliament. From the 
general warrant for libel in 1763 to the crash of George III.'s 
policy of personal authority in 1782, the Wilkes affair was one 
of the most important incidents, involving some of the gravest 
issues of the struggle; and, as unsavory as was his personal 
character, it was necessary that he be sustained if the princi- 
ples of constitutional liberty were to be preserved. 

It is no better than the ostrich's hiding its head in the sand 
for us to seek to minimize Wilkes's importance from dislike 
of his character. Says Lecky: "He had also done more than 

*Lecky, iii,, 318. 



1 62 Life of Henry Laurens 

any other single man to unite a divided and powerless Opposi- 
tion; and to mark out the lines of political parties." 

The Middlesex election for the first time brought (the corrupt constitution 
of the House of Commons) into open opposition to public opinion. The 
year 1769 is very memorable in political history, for it witnessed the birth 
of English Radicalism, and the first serious attempts to reform and control 
Parliament by pressure from without, making its members habitually sub- 
servient to their constituents. ... A multitude of small political societies, 
under the guidance of local politicians, were accustomed to meet at different 
taverns in the City; but they were soon absorbed or eclipsed by a great 
democratic association called the Society of the Supporters of the Bill of 
Rights, which was founded in 1769 for the purpose of assisting Witkes in his 
struggle with the court, and of advocating political changes of the most 
drastic character. ... A long series of tests were (sic) prepared to be offered 
to candidates at elections. Every candidate was required to aim at a fuU 
and equal representation of the people in Parliament, annual Parliaments, 
the exclusion from the House of Commons of every member who accepted 
any place, pension, contract, lottery ticket, or other form of emolument 
from the Crown ; the exaction of an oath against bribery; the impeachment 
of the ministers who had violated the rights of the Middlesex freeholders, 
and instigated the "Massacre" of St. George's Fields; the redress of the 
grievances of Ireland, and the restoration of the sole right of self -taxation 
to America. ' 

One of the results of this movement [continues Lecky] was, that the 
Whigs were compelled, though slowly and timidly, to identify themselves 
with the question of Parliamentary reform. 

Moreover this Bill of Rights Society took an active part 
in supporting the movement in 177 1 which marked the final 
triumph of the freedom of the press to report the debates in 
Parliament, and thus identified itself with what Lecky de- 
clares to be perhaps "the most momentous of all events" of 
the eighteenth century.' 

Certainly there was something of the highest importance 
at stake here, and the action of the Commons of South Carolina 
in throwing themselves actively into a struggle among whose 
aims were the reform of the ParUament to which they were 
subject and "the restoration of the sole right of self -taxation 

' Lecky 's England in the Eighteenth Century, iii., 372-4. 
'lb., iii., 480 and 483. 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 163 

to America" was something more than meddHng in a personal 
dispute between Wilkes and the King with which they "had 
no concern whatever."^ 

The Society for the Support of the Bill of Rights sent 
appeals not only over England, but to the colonies as well. In 
Charleston they met with a hearty response, where ' ' the friends 
of liberty agreeable to the English Constitution," as they 
described themselves, organized into "Club No. 45."* The 
application of the society in England for aid was kept secret, 
says Lieutenant Governor Bull, until the advanced party in 
the Assembly were ready to act. On the last day of their 
session, December 8, 1769, the Commons ordered the treas- 
urers to advance to a committee of the House the sum of 
£10,500 currency to be sent to England "for the defense of 
British and American Liberty." ^ The committee promptly 
discharged their task by sending London exchange for £1500 
sterling. Lieutenant Governor Bull notified the ministry 
of this action and there was begun a controversy unprece- 
dented for bitterness in the history of the province, which 
still raged when superseded by the Revolution.'' 

The conduct of the Commons raises a number of serious 
questions. Was their action legal? If not in accord with 
strict legal forms, was it in line with established custom? 
Apart from questions of legality, was it justifiable in its 
objects? 

At the direction of the ministry Attorney General William 
de Grey in London and Lieutenant Governor Bull in South 
Carolina investigated the constitutional history of the province 
since the charter of 1662 to ascertain whether by any possible 
construction legal justification existed for the action of the 
Commons. De Grey's report, presented February 13, 1770, 
is a strict legal argument, entirely ignoring the part which 

^ McCrady ii., 663; 690 et passim. * S. C. Gazette, Dec. 2, 1772. 

3 McCrady, ii., 662; Wallace, 62, 

■» No other colony contributed, and so far as I know, no individuals in 
America. According to the statement of the Society in London, £18,821 
sterling of Wilkes's debts were paid off or compounded and £4973 fines 
and election expenses paid. See Almon's Wilkes, iv., 10-14, v., 42. 



164 Life of Henry Laurens 

historical development might have played in evolving an un- 
written constitution of precedent and custom. He assumes 
that the royal instructions to Governors constitute a rigid 
written constitution whose supremacy places it beyond modi- 
fication by precedent or custom. But one conclusion was, 
therefore, possible: that the Commons and Council were 
absolutely coordinate in their authority over money bills as 
well as all other legislation and that the action of the former 
in ordering the money paid to their committee and of the 
treasurers in paying it was unlawful. 

Lieutenant Governor Bull's report is much more interesting 
to the student of institutions. To the bald conclusions of De 
Grey, with which he agrees as to the letter of the law, he adds 
much historical information. Bull's own life, so intimately 
associated for many years with public business, covered much 
of what he described, and he could, therefore, throw light on 
the delicate and constantly shifting organism of constitutional 
development which it is impossible to obtain from legislative 
journals. The legal method of appropriating money. Bull 
explained, was by a bill passed by the Commons and Council 
and signed by the Governor. In pressing emergencies, how- 
ever, when the delay incident to three regular readings, etc., 
might prejudice the public interests, the strict formalities of 
the law had sometimes been waived by common consent. 
The first departure was for each house to pass and the Governor 
to sign a simple resolution voting the money, the Commons 
at the same time resolving to replace the sum by the next 
tax bill. The practical control of finance having been virtually 
surrendered after a long struggle to the Commons, how 
natural that the still more expeditious method should some- 
times be employed of the Commons alone ordering the treas- 
urers to pay specified sums into the hands of the Governor, 
resolving, as before, to replace it in the next tax bill. Of late 
years, says Bull, even one more step had been allowed to go 
unchallenged because of the propriety of the object or the 
reluctance to precipitate a struggle between the two houses 
on the subject of money bills, namely, for the Commons to 
order the money to be paid to a committee of their own 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 165 

number, with the usual resolution to replace it by the regular 
budget.^ 

This was only one of the many encroachments which the I 
Commons of South Carolina had made upon the authority 
of the Governor and Council. The constitution of the prov- 
ince was in a state of growth, just as that of the mother 
country, and the Commons in the one case were as tenacious 
as in the other to maintain the last position of advance as the 
measure of their rights. To prove the absence of legal basis 
for the claims of the South Carolina Commons is not the 
conclusion of the whole matter ; it is another of the instances 
of the general causes of the American Revolution: law and 
justice had diverged, and no one of sufficient wisdom and 
patience appeared to get them together again. 

Having considered the rights of the Commons in law and 
custom respectively, we may briefly notice the merits of their 
action in its broader aspect. If the bald question is put. 
Should they have sent the people's money to England to 
pay the debts and prison expenses of John Wilkes ? only one 
answer is possible. But such a treatment of the case is 
inadequate and unfair. Wilkes in 1769 was not a private 
person. On the contrary he represented more vitally than 
any other man then living the principle of self-government 
and Parliamentary reform as against the system of absolutism 
and corruption which George III. was striving to establish. 
It is not correct to state, as does General McCrady,^ that 
'"The Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights' was 
nothing more than an association to raise means to pay the 
debts of John Wilkes and to provide for his support and 
his expense while imprisoned." The vast majority had 
no affection for Wilkes or even knowledge of him save as 
the representative of constitutional liberty versus tyranny. 
Lecky much more correctly states that the Society "was 
founded in 1769 for the purpose of assisting Wilkes in his 
struggle with the Court, and of advocating political changes 

' Wallace, 59-60, quoting Bull in the MS. Public Records of S. C, xxxii., 
132. Mi., 663. 



1 66 Life of Henry Laurens 

of the most drastic character."^ As to appropriating money 
for the payment of his debts, let us recall that one of the 
weapons of the Court was to secure Wilkes's imprisonment 
for debt, and so crush its most dangerous critic, together with 
the political issues he represented. The cause of constitutional 
liberty in England and America in 1769 was the same cause. 
The corrupt, subservient, and unrepresentative Parliament was 
responsible for the oppressive measures towards America. To 
reform this Parliament and to restore to America the sole 
right of self -taxation were among the declared objects of the 
Society. If the Commons of South Carolina were justified 
in seeking the repeal of offensive laws against their constitu- 
ents, they were justified in spending £1500 for a means well 
calculated to that end and their safety in future, to say 
nothing of a generous sympathy with the cause of liberty in 
the mother country. 

It is useless to follow the weary wrangles between the 
Commons and the Governor and Council which fill the 
political history of South Carolina for the next six years. 
The King gave the matter his personal attention and deter- 
mined to make a severe example of the treasurers who had 
lent themselves to the plan. In accordance with the reports 
of Bull and De Grey, the Secretary of State for the colonies 
sent out the "Additional Instruction of April 14, 1770."^ 
The claim of the Commons to the sole authority in the raising 
and spending of taxes in South Carolina was denied and the 
absolutely coordinate authority of the Council asserted in 
the most emphatic terms. The Governor and Council were 
forbidden under pain of instant removal to allow any bill 
to become law which appropriated a single farthing to any 
purpose other than the specific service of the King, and 
particularly not to pass any bill reimbtursing the treasurers.^ 

^ England, iii., 373. 

' Wallace, 64, quoting MS. Public Records of S. C, xxxii., 236, 249. 

3 General McCrady sneers at the idea of the Commons repaying the 
money and accuses them of untruth in stating such to have been their 
purpose. This is entirely unjust. The Commons had frequently bor- 
rowed money from the funds in the treasury by the same extra-legal process 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 167 

It was hoped thus to sue them for thrice the amount as a 
warning against any repetition of such conduct. 

The issue was thus joined beyond the possibility of com- 
promise between the royal and popular elements in the 
government. What the firm Quakers had wrested from the be- 
nevolent Penn in the infancy of their colony, namely, the abo- 
lition of the legislative character of the Council, the Commons 
of South Carolina were now striving for in a more difficult 
struggle with a powerful king under circumstances raising his 
opposition to the highest pitch. The cool assumption in 
England that this radical position was held only by the 
irresponsible element in the province was based on the same 
ignorance which permitted the Duke of Newcastle when 
Secretary of State to address a letter to "the Governor of 
the island of New England." It is true that some of the 
more conservative leaders disapproved of the grant in the 
first place, but none, save perhaps a few of the views of 
William Wragg, questioned the right of the Assembly to make 
the appropriation. Laurens was a hundred and sixty miles 
away when the vote was taken, had no intimation of what was 
on foot, and when he heard of it, "immediately in presence 
of divers persons pass'd his Censure in very plain language, 
'these Chapswill geta rap o' the knuckles for this.' " ^ But this 
typical rich and conservative merchant and planter, who had 
repeatedly braved unflinchingly the anger of almost the entire 
body of his fellow-citizens when he regarded their position or 
their methods wrong, stood from first to last in vindicating 
the claims of the Commons, along with the most ancient and 
eminent families of the province. To the very eve of his de- 
parture for England, he labored actively in supporting the 
party of the people's rights, if party it could be called which 
combined practically the entire political poptdation. 

and provided for its replacement in the next tax bill. The only reason 
that there was no tax bill passed after 1769 was that the Commons refused 
to pass any which did not reimburse the treasurers and the Council any 
which did. 

' See paragraph 18 of his petition of Jtme 23, 1781, in Chapter XXIV» 
below. 



1 68 Life of Henry Laurens 

The Commons, in accordance with their established custom, 
and true to their pledge, included in the tax bill for 1770 an 
item of £10,500 currency to reimburse the treasurers. On 
seeing this the Council returned the bill to the Commons 
with a message in substance as follows : 

All grants are for the King's service, but this of £10,500 
"tacitly affronts his Majesty's government." We do not 
wish to raise any of the old questions of our right to amend 
money bills, but simply intimate that if the item referred to 
remains, the bill cannot receive our assent, which is certainly " 
necessary for its passage. We feel that should we ignore this 
matter, our legislative power would finally come to be inter- 
preted away as mere advice to the Governor which he might 
accept or reject, "according to the ingenious distinction of a 
Governor many years ago."^ 

This is a very significant document. One almost pities the 
Council in their evident dread that their authority is about to 
be annihilated after the Pennsylvania fashion by the resistless 
encroachments of the popular power. Their mild message 
aroused the Commons to great indignation. Lieutenant 
Governor Bull (a man so wise and conciliatory that the author 
of the Traditions of the Revolution was led to say that if he 
had been made dictator of South Carolina no Revolution 
would have occurred in that province) sought to interest the 
Commons in the flour and tobacco bills, involving matters 
of great commercial importance. But immediately, he says, 
there arose a storm of "No ! No ! " and the House proceeded 
to appoint a committee of ten of its leading members, of 
whom Laurens was one, to report upon the action of the 
Council. Their report was a vigorous attack upon the legisla- 
tive authority of that body and an indignant denunciation 

' Wallace, 66, quoting MS. Pub. Recs. of S. C, xxxviii., 87; Smith, 387. 
In about 1745 Governor Glen was so incensed at being excluded from the 
legislative sessions of the Cotmcil that he declared that they possessed only 
advisory functions. When waited upon by two members of the Commons 
to ascertain whether he would sign the tax bill without the Council's 
adopting it, he saw the untenable character of his position and so was 
obliged to refuse. 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 169 

of their claims to such. Their contention to control money 
bills they denounced as a " seditious doctrine . . . for the inter- 
position of some power to raise money upon the inhabitants of 
this province other than their own representatives." 

The resolutions were hardly less offensive to the Lieutenant 
Governor than to the Council ; but with his usual tact he said to 
the members that, as their private affairs doubtless required 
their attention just at planting time, he declared them this 
eleventh day of April, 1770, prorogued; — and "God save the 
King, " an expression fast coming to be needed in a more vital 
sense than as the formal amen of proclamations. 

Bull was soon superseded by the young Lord Charles 
Greville Montagu and matters speedily progressed from bad 
to worse. With amazing fatuity, which can be explained only 
by his ignorance of the high-spirited people he had been sent 
to preside over, Lord Montagu called the Assembly to convene 
in the village of Beaufort, hoping, he says, that, being removed 
from the radical influences centering in Charleston, they 
might be wearied into compliance by a series of prorogations 
and reassemblings in such an inaccessible spot. When they 
met, October 8, 1772, there was the fullest attendance on the 
first day recorded in the history of the province.^ The plan 
proved worse than a failure : it only created another grievance. 
Montagu immediately surrendered his scheme and prorogued 
the body to Charleston, where such a series of defeats and 
humiliations awaited as to render him during the remainder 
of his stay in South Carolina an exile in a hostile country. 
The feeling involved extended to social life. The diary kept 
by the wife of a distinguished merchant records no dinners to 
Governors after 1770, though they had been frequent before." 
Montagu wrote to his government on November 4th, 1772, 

' Wallace, 73, quoting MS. Pub. Recs. S. C, xxxiii., 167, 174. Bancroft 
(iii., 408) seems to have fallen into confusion in stating that Montagu called 
the Assembly at Port Royal, a village near Beaufort, in order to force 
them to furnish him with an acceptable oflficial residence. "The culminat- 
ing point of administrative insolence" did not go that far, though it is 
true that the Governor was dissatisfied with his lodgings. 

=i McCrady, ii., 536. 



170 Life of Henry Laurens 

that unless the course of events was arrested, it would shake 
the very power of the King. The Commons, he continued, 
have made three innovations that threaten a revolution in 
the "very nature of the constitution." First, they had for 
three years maintained their sole authority to control taxation 
and expenditure; second, they had recently proceeded with 
business after having been summoned to his presence for a , 
prorogation; and third, their Committee of Correspondence j 
had continued to act after the House had been prorogued, thus ' 
rendering the Governor impotent to arrest operations hostile 
to the King's interests. 

Laurens, by his departure in 1771 for England to educate 
his sons, was withdrawn from the immediate scene of conflict. 
A letter of February 20, 1771 , reveals his position on the ques- 
tions which were at that time agitating the colony. The 
Assembly are in the right, he says, and he thinks that even the 
ministry can be made to see it so. As usual in such crises, he 
is burdened with committee work. The recent disallowance --, 
by the King of an act of Assembly assigning representatives to . 
two new parishes, a measure to meet one of the worst defects / 
of the provincial government, he denounces as tyrannical. 
Yet, he consoles himself, it will make the present generation so 
watchful as to defeat the ends of the enemies of America (a 
right worthy piece of political philosophizing, we may remark). 
Another act of the royal government he terms downright 
robbery: its disallowance of the act for stamping £106,500 in 
paper bills to exchange for the old lawful money. "These 
tenders in law have been our property for ages past." The 
King's veto must be counteracted, and to this end. the members 
have personally subscribed to receive those bills and as a 
House have resolved to redeem them. He proceeds to de- 
nounce bitterly the opponents of the Assembly as false friends 
who estrange "the King's best and truest friends, such as 
neither eat his bread nor wear his livery, but whose lives 
and fortunes will be always ready to be sacrificed in his 
defense." 

Laurens's allusion to the recent disallowance of an act 
assigning representatives to two new parishes indicates his 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 171 

active sympathy with an urgently needed reform.^ The 
back countrymen, who probably constituted a majority of the 
white population in 1769, had "been at the trouble of running 
the dividing lines far Westward " to the Cherokee line in order 
to ascertain in what parishes they were, and declared that 
they were coming to the parish churches to vote, though it 
should be a hundred and fifty miles. Their unauthorized 
survey commanded no respect, and the privilege of voting 
was denied to those who came except in Prince William parish, 
which lay along the Savannah River, and so on one side at 
least had natural boundaries about which there could be no 
dispute.^ "And because they are unrepresented, they refuse 
to pay taxes. These people sometimes, 'tis said, when their 
complaints are treated with slight or reproach threaten to 
come down in large bodies to force a due attention to their 
claims and their desires."^ Bull gave assurance that these 
disorders were not of the same nature as those "in the 
neighboring colony, " where the North Carolina " Regulators " 
were drifting towards the battle of Alamance; yet there was 
present in each as a moving cause, though operating on 
different lines, the injustice of the royal government. 

Laurens soon sailed on his three-year trip abroad to educate 
his sons. While in England he lost no opportunity to serve 
the interests of South Carolina by representations to men 
of influence and position. Though he found the Assembly 
severely blamed universally in England, he had never yet 
failed, he says, to convert a man to whom he had talked and 

' Laurens refers to the recommendation of the ministers to the King 
Nov. 21, 1770, to veto the act of Assembly of May, 1767, creating St. Luke's 
and All Saints' parishes. This illustrates the delays to which urgent 
provincial business was often subjected, action of any kind on this vital 
matter having been delayed three years and a half. 

^ McCrady, ii., 640. It is stated in Corns. Jour., MS., xxxviii., p. 30, 
that recently before July, 1769, the parish lines had been run back, some of 
them over 200 miles, to the Cherokee line. The fact that the Statutes 
contain nothing to indicate that it was done by an officer is in harmony 
with Bull's statement that the back countrymen had "been at the trouble 
of ruiming the dividing lines far westward." 

3 Bull in Pub. Records of S. C, MS., xxxii., 36. 



172 Life of Henry Laurens 

thinks that he can make Lord Hillsborough see it in a new 
light if opportunity should offer; which indicates that Mr. 
Laurens knew less of that autocratic, narrow-minded and self- 
sufficient young Secretary than he was destined later to learn 
under very trying circumstances. 

Nothing is more significant than the increasing earnestness' 
with which during these years Laurens voices his protests 
against the wrongs of the royal government and the greater 
and greater lengths to which he declares that he will go rather 
than submit. His letters from England constitute a long 
series of declarations in a fateful campaign in which, whatever 
its cost or outcome, he is determined never to surrender. His 
expressions in a letter to his brother in Charleston, December 
12, 1771, will suffice. He admits that the gift was in the 
beginning doubtless an unfortunate circumstance, but the 
question at issue now has absolutely nothing to do with that. 
Now the King has ordered the Governor to sign no tax bill 

unless certain clauses which are dictated and enjoined by the King's instruc- 
tions are inserted in the bUl. ... If the House of Assembly ever submit to 
insert such clauses, they will sell the birthright and dearest privilege of their 
constituents and will incur the hatred and detestation of the present age, 
and their names wiU be branded in aU future ages with the infamous char- 
acters of betrayers of the trust imposed in them by the people. I wotdd 
rather forfeit my whole estate and be reduced to the necessity of working 
for my bread than to have these clauses in consequence of a ministerial 
dictate made parts of our tax bills. ... I reason upon the premise that the 
representative body of the people in Carolina when regularly assembled 
vjiave and ought to enjoy aU the rights and privileges of a free people ; or in 
other words, all the rights and privileges as a branch of the legislature 
which are held, enjoyed and exercised by the House of Commons in Great 
Britain. ... I believe the scheme here is to reduce us to the state of a 
country corporation. 

As late as January 24, 1774, he again returns to the subject, 
outraged at the statements in a pamphlet which he rightly 
guessed to be the work of Egerton Leigh. He busied himself 
"rummaging several mornings at the plantation office and 
elsewhere" for materials to defeat it and strove to induce 
Ralph Izard, Jr., then in London, to issue an answer and 
Garth to counteract it with the ministry. "I cannot see such 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 173 

hellish machinations erected for the destruction of my 
country's peace and welfare, and under the mask of candor 
too, and stand by an unconcerned spectator." ^ But his 
early hope of inducing the ministry to see the matter in a new 
light finally vanished in the conviction that they harbored a 
purpose alike uninformed and tyrannical. 

A very few months in England convinced Laurens that the 
King was under the guidance of bad councillors.^ His revul- 
sion at the state of morals we shall soon notice. A loyal 
British subject was being unconsciously but not the less 
inevitably prepared for a step upon which he would as yet 
have looked with horror. 

Meanwhile the conflict at home knew no cessation. Four- 
teen acts on non-controverted subjects were passed in 1770 and 
'71 ; but between March 20, 1771, and March 4, 1775, there is 
a complete blank in the statute book. Thence until the Revolu- 
tion only two acts were passed: one to revive certain import 
duties for the support of the established church and a large 
number of other laws necessary for public order, and one for 
punishing counterfeiters. No general tax bill was passed 
after 1769. 

At first the Council had been unanimous in its stand ; but by 
1773 three of its native South Carolina members were ready to 
take the side of the popular party against the five English 
placemen. Two of the former published in the South Carolina 
Gazette a protest presented in the Council by William Henry 
Drayton against the conduct of that body. The Council, 
claiming the prerogatives of a legislative house, placed the 
printer, Thomas Powell, under arrest for contempt. This 
ill-advised act supplied the occasion for another humiliating 
blow to their prestige. The printer applied for release under 
habeas corpus proceedings before two justices of the peace, 
Messrs. Rawlins Lowndes, Speaker of the Commons, and 

^Laurens to Gervais, Jan. 24, 1774. McCrady, ii., 722, states that 
Leigh was the author of the pamphlet, and iii., 9, that the Ralph Izard 
then in England was Ralph Izard, Jr. I know of no move of his in the 
matter. 

^ E.g., Laurens to Thos. Franklin, Dec. 26, 1771. 



174 Life of Henry Laurens 

George Gabriel Powell, a prominent member of the same body, 
and both active leaders of the aggressive party. ^ They re- 
leased him on the ground that the Council was not a house of 
the legislature and hence had no right to punish for contempt 
and were unanimously endorsed by the Commons, who thus 
formally ratified the denial of the legislative character of 
the Council.^ Dartmouth, the Colonial Secretary, despaired 
now of ever reestablishing the power of the Council, and Bull 
had been hopeless ever since the Commons had refused to bow 
before the King's express command of April 14, 1770. This 
contest was one of the main agencies in preparing South Caro- 
lina for the Revolution. How interesting would it have been 
had it been possible for this internal evolution to have run its 
course to some definite conclusion as did the earlier and 
milder contest of the same kind in Pennsylvania. 

The Commons proceeded repeatedly to appropriate the 
public money by their sole authority and in March, 1774, went 
to a length amounting almost to an exercise of their new con- 
tention of being the sole legislative body. At that time they 
changed the law providing for £200 currency compensation 
for the owner of an executed slave so that in future the officials 
conducting the trial should appraise the value. The public 
accounts show that this new rule was obeyed. ^ 

Their triumph over the Council was registered in a manner 
humiliating in the extreme to that body, as will be made 
plainer by a brief explanation of the financial history of the 
times. The chronic scarcity of hard money was unusually 
severe in 1774, and the Commons were therefore desirous of 
effecting the issue of some £200,000 currency as a circulating 
medium. A way was devised by which this might be accom- 
plished without submitting to the "Additional Instruction of 

' McCrady, ii., 717, states that the act of 1712 (Statutes at Large, ii., 
453-4) made the writ returnable before the Chief Justice or two Assistant 
Judges, and that Lowndes and Powell were Assistant Judges. They had 
been, but had recently had occasion to complain of being "unconstitu- 
tionally" removed. They were stiU capable of granting habeas corpus as 
justices of the peace and quorum. Smith, 390, states the matter correctly. 

' Wallace, 80-85. 

3 Ih., 87, quoting Commons Journal, MSS., xxxix., pt. ii., 159, 211. 



The Wilkes Fund Dispute 175 

April 14, 1770." Several months were usually required after 
the tax bill was regularly passed to collect the whole amount. 
To meet the consequent temporary lack of funds it had been 
customary during the past few years to provide in the tax bill 
for the issue to public creditors of certificates of indebtedness 
receivable in payment of taxes. ^ The Commons now carried 
this one step further by ordering, March 24, 1774, the issue to 
the public creditors of certificates bearing the signatures of 
their clerk and five members. The wealthy planters and 
merchants in the house pledged themselves to accept the 
paper as money, and a similar resolution by the Chamber of 
Commerce, together with the pressing need of a medium of 
exchange, assured a ready circulation. The people, as is now 
observed in the case of clearing-house certificates in times of 
panic, passed it on "with an eager impatience, almost like 
an hot iron, " and doubtless there was a very welcome 
liquidation of old debts. Even those members of the Council 
who also held salaried positions accepted their pay in the 
medium which proclaimed their humiliation as legislators. 
Only Bull lived up to his principles by refusing his dues, 
which was a great deal easier for a man of independent fortune 
than for placemen who three years before were already suffer- 
ing for their salaries.^ 

The uncompromising attitude of a man of Laurens's char- 
acter is a significant commentary on the questions raised by 
the Wilkes fund, which involved the foundations of self- 
taxation and self-government. I cannot concur in the deroga- 
tory tone in which General McCrady narrates these events 
nor admit that the conflict was precipitated solely by the 
Commons' "improper subversion of the public funds to the 
support of a disreputable private individual with whom 
the province had no concern. "^ Lord Chatham thought the 
cause represented by this individual worthy of some of his most 
splendid exertions. He understood that the personal char- 
acter of a disreputable individual was in no wise the issue, 

' Smith, 277-8. 

2 McCrady, ii., 729-32; Smith, 393-4; Wallace, 86-7. 

3 McCrady, ii., 730. 



176 Life of Henry Laurens 

but that the constitutional liberty of a vast empire was; and 
so understood the Commons House of Assembly of South 
Carolina. To my mind, their history contains no chapter 
which is more to their credit. 



CHAPTER XIV 

FAMILY LIFE AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS, I77I 

BEFORE following Laurens to England we must notice his 
home life and his part in the attempt to found a college 
in South Carolina. Both as a man of public spirit and as the 
father of a young family he felt a keen interest in everything 
relating to education. In 1763 he sought to get a teacher to 
come to Charleston for the free school at £150 sterling a year, 
or even £200. Education forms a frequent subject in his 
letters, and his sentiments always indicate a clear understand- 
ing of the disadvantages of the situation in the province and 
the importance of making adequate provision for both ele- 
mentary and higher instruction. In judging of the situation 
from his characterization, we must remember that we are 
listening to one who was much given to impatient comment 
on incompetence and bungling and who had a very high 
standard in all that related to this particular subject. He 
declared that South Carolina's public educational institutions, 
or the lack of them rather, was a disgrace, and that it was a 
great reproach that even her children had to be sent abroad 
"for A B C and a little Latin. '"^ Both before and after he 
took his sons to England he bewailed the necessity of such a 
step, as he was strongly opposed to removing boys from home 
for their education and entertained, from what he knew of 
English society and observed in some of the youths who had 
been sent into it, a strong fear of the results on morals.* 

I Letter of Jan. 11, 1770. 

* C/. Washington's aversion to sending boys and young men abroad 
for their education. Among the most interesting comments on the educa- 
tion of the sons of the wealthy class in old South Carolina are those in 
12 177 



178 Life of Henry Laurens 

General McCrady has shown that in education South 
Carolina compared favorably with other colonies in the forty 
years preceding the Revolution.^ A number of schools 
existed for instruction in classical and modern languages and 
the branches to which women's education usually extended 
at that time, while requirements were very well met in the 
practical branches demanded by business in a seaport commer- 
cial center. The plantation system made private tutoring 
the best expedient for the wealthy planter. In strongly 
Presbyterian centers, such as the Waxhaws, good schools were 
conducted by the ministers; but in general the back country 
was at that time almost completely neglected. 

The interest of the upper classes in education is attested 
by the large number of bequests, subscriptions, and societies 
from a very early period for the education of the poor. The 
example of several colonies to the north in establishing colleges 
was cited for the imitation of South Carolina, and the advan- 
tages to be expected from such a course were about to lead 
this now wealthy province to similar action. The realization 
of this plan as a part of a system of economic independence 
received a new impulse from the ideals underlying the non- 
importation association of 1769-70. " Carolinacus " in the 
South Carolina Gazette of November 9, 1769,^ pointed out the 
advantages of educating their youth at home and enriching 
their community with college faculties of intellect and char- 

the letters of Laurens's remarkable daughter Martha, Mrs. David Ramsay, 
during 18 10 to her son at Princeton. These and her father's letters of 
forty years earlier, one in spirit and similar even in phraseology, indicate 
that the wealthy society of that day was as grievously afflicted with the 
gilded youth as the corresponding class at the present. The following 
extracts show how vigorous were the views of this lady: "Your time 
for improvement will be quickly past; if it is not improved, you will find 
yourself grown up with the pride of what you call a gentleman; . , . and 
of all the mean objects in creation a lazy, poor, proud gentleman, especially 
if he is a dressy fellow, is the meanest; and yet this is generally the char- 
acter of men of good family, and slender forttmes, unless they take an early 
turn to learning and science." — Ramsay's Memoirs of Mrs. Ramsay, pp. 
300-1. Cf. also pp. 283, 292, 297, 303-6. 

' McCrady, ii., 449; 482-505. " McCrady ii., 496. 



Family Life and Educational Interests 179 

acter. The plan appealed to the opponents of non-importa- 
tion also, and on January 30, 1770, Lieutenant Governor Bull 
transmitted to the Assembly a strong message outlining a 
system of six high schools in various localities and a college 
in Charleston. This enlightened plan for a coordinated, 
province-wide system was embodied in the bill introduced in 
the Assembly. The movement for a college particularly was 
supported by strong pubUc sentiment. In 1770 a meeting 
in Charleston petitioned the Assembly in its favor and many 
persons stood ready with donations or bequests. But for 
the long legislative deadlock, the measure would in all proba- 
bility have been adopted. Yet there was opposition also, 
perhaps from those who prized the advantages of travel and 
residence at the great English schools.'' " I lament the blind- 
ness, the willful blindness of some of our countrymen who 
know better than they act," wrote Laurens.^ Bull, John 
Rutledge, Henry Laurens, and Alexander Garden were among 
the strongest friends of the measure. Laurens strove for the 
college inside the Assembly and out and wrote from England 
that he would hail the news of its establishment with greater 
joy than any possible news of increase of wealth or flourishing 
plantations. From a religious standpoint he declared that it 
must be founded "upon a broad bottom, " and not like Prince- 
ton, which he was disappointed to find after listening to the 
liberal professions of its representative collecting subscrip- 
tions in South Carolina the previous winter was officered by 
teachers of only one denomination. "Let us in Carolina 
avoid the opposite extreme and let us also avoid the snare of 
having all within the pale of the Church of England."^ 

The Wilkes fund deadlock merged in the Revolution and the 
college had to wait until 1785. Laurens had then retired from 
all public activities, but he had the satisfaction of seeing both 
his sons-in-law, Dr. David Ramsay and Governor Charles 
Pinckney, among the original trustees of the institution for 
which he had striven. 

^ Laurens to A. Garden, May 24, 1772. ' Letter of Dec. 5, 1771. 

3 Laurens to Benjamin Elliot, Sept. 9, 1771. The bill of 1770 required 
that the president should be of that church. 



i8o Life of Henry Laurens 

Schools and colleges concerned Laurens very closely in 1770. 
He had a boy of sixteen, one of seven, and one of five, a girl 
aged eleven and an infant daughter. Life in the new home 
on East Bay Street had had its sorrows in full measure with its 
joys. The poor parents suffered terribly in the loss of their 
children. Of twelve^ only five survived the mother and only 
three the father. Mrs. Laurens's constitution was not equal 
to the strain of her twenty strenuous years of married life and 
her serious protracted illness often cast its gloom over the 
household. With a view to giving his attention to his chil- 
dren's education, the father gradually contracted his business. 
His plans were brought to immediate execution by a sudden 
and terrible blow. On April 27, 1770, there was born a little 
girl "which the women say is well; but I have been too deeply 
affected by the mother's deep distress to take any notice of 
it." It "melts my heart and fills my mind with anxieties 
which are the companions of an involuntary submission, and 
such, I fear, are the best of human resignations. We submit 
in such cases to the decrees of Providence because we cannot 
stay nor controul them. This is at least an ingenuous confes- 
sion of the weak state of my own breast." His " good friend " 
died on May 22, 1770, leaving a babe to bear her name who 
was herself to close her life as a young wife of only twenty-four 
years of age leaving a twelve days old son. Laurens's an- 
guish was extreme. For many weeks he could attend to 
no business and for months his correspondence almost ceased. 
In a letter of October i, 1770, he pours out his grief to his 
friend James Habersham of Savannah : 

I may make a beginning, but a strange and unaccoiantable languor will 
often cause me to drop the pen before I have finished my design. I have 
not yet got quite out of that dejected state in which from the death of my 
dear wife and for a long time after I was overwhelmed and which I need not 
attempt to describe to" you whose heart has been wrung, and whose days 
and nights have been embittered by similar distress, whose soul is ever 
sympathizing with the afflicted, who know too well from past experience 
what I must have suflEered from two months painful anxiety, now hoping, 
now desponding, and at length from the fatal blow which took from me a 

' Or thirteen. See pp. 58-9, and 59, n. 



Family Life and Educational Interests i8i 

faithful bosom friend, a friend and dear companion full of sincerity, free from 
every degree of guile, ever ardently striving to keep me happy, studying 
every moment for means to soften the cares of my more rugged path, who 
in sickness and in health was ever loving, cherishing and ready to obey — 
who never once — no, not once — during the course of twenty years most inti- 
mate connection threw the stumbling block of opposition or controversy 
in my way; to whom in that great part of our short span of existence I never 
had cause to impute any other fault than that of an excess of goodness, 
condescension and charity — which took from my children a mother 
indeed! from the poor a cheerful and liberal benefactress and from virtue 
a friend — a blow which staggered me almost to the gates of death, the 
weight of which still lays heavy upon me. ... I have submitted and do 
submit to this stroke of Providence with as much of that dutiful acquies- 
cence which Christianity requires as my depraved heart will admit of; but, 
my good friend, if I had not been a witness of that absolute resignation in 
which my dear wife expired without a sigh, repeating in full assurance of 
bliss, " Father, Thy will be done," I should believe really from my own rebel- 
lious feelings be tempted to believe {sic) that the most perfect submission 
among us poor mortals is constrained. Mine I confess has been too much 
so; and yet I think I have even desired to resist the decrees of him to whom 
omnipotence and omniscience is to be ascribed and whose tender mercies 
are over all his works and will be found in all his dispensations by those who 
seek for him to be just and merciful, to whom be glory, honor and thanks- 
giving for ever and ever. 

This letter, very creditable to the heart of the bereaved 
husband, can hardly fail to suggest the difference of viewpoint 
between Laurens and an equally good man to-day, who, for 
instance, if the father of twelve or thirteen children in twenty 
years, would hardly speak of "the cares of my more rugged 
path"; and on the difference between Mrs. Laurens and the 
average twentieth century woman it is unnecessary to 
comment. 

Laurens's letters, which had always borne testimony to his 
Christian character, from now to the end of his life reveal a 
deeply religious tone, line after line often being quotations 
from Scripture or exclamations of resignation, adoration, or 
thanksgiving in Biblical phraseology. He withdrew more and 
more from business and gave himself mainly to his children 
as "father, mother, nurse, tutor, and companion." From 
the hour of his loss he determined that he would never jeopard- 
ize their affection by introducing a stepmother, and never did 



1 82 Life of Henry Laurens 

he reconsider this intention.^ A new series of afflictions 
threatened to leave him childless. Towards the end of the 
year five-year-old Jimmy lay several days choked almost to 
death with a plum stone; immediately Jacky took scarlet 
fever; then Henry, then "Patsy," and lastly himself, only 
baby "Polly" escaping.^ 

The death of his wife determined Latirens to act at once 
upon his long-considered plan of going to Europe with his sons 
for their education. ^ In April, 1771 , he sent little seven-year- 
old Henry ahead. The public and private schools in Charles- 
ton were then, he says, under the worst direction he had ever 
known. He did not think well of the Philadelphia schools 
from the reports of the Charleston boys, about twenty in 
number, who were there, not to speak of the bad health of 
that city. To the Rev. Richard Clarke, Islington, London, in 
whose family his boy was to reside and study, he wrote solicit- 
ously of the child, and a right good insight into the father's 
character the letter gives.'* Little Harry is to be inoculated 
immediately on arriving in London. He shall "be clad in 
plain decent apparel, unmixed with any kind of foppery." 
"Six months more at dancing; the sooner that sHght sprig of 
education is entered upon and ended, the better." He is 
uncertain yet whether the boy's education shall include the 
classics, "which in my poor opinion have often been impedi- 
ments to the success of young men, in an education of more 
value and real usefulness, in the middle sphere of life." "I 
don't want him to ramble in the city, but to be kept a boy under 
the eye of his tutor for a season, " and therefore he is not send- 
ing him any introductions to his London friends, "which have 
so often proved pernicious to our Carolina youth." And 

' Laurens to Mrs. Ann Foster, Oct. 24, 1771, and to the Laurences of 
Poictiers, Feb. 25, 1774. 

' "Patsy" was eleven-year-old Martha; "Polly" was baby Eleanor. 

3 Laurens to Mrs. Foster, Oct. 24, 1771. 

4 John was later put at first at the same place. I can only surmise as to 
'9\h ether this was the same gentleman to whom Laurens refers in a letter to 
Daniel Crokatt, Apr. 23, 1764, as "My dear friend the Reverend Mr. 
Clark," 



Family Life and Educational Interests 183 

finally, ^^ above all I entreat you to keep him in due subordina- 
tion, to impress the fear of God upon his mind, to show him 
the great difference between good and evil, truth and error, 
between a useful and a fine man in society. I commend him 
to your care, my friend, to train him up as you would a child 
of your own." 

To the captain of the Indian King the father likewise 
gave ample directions. Harry was to "read in his books 
which are in his chest to you every day, to pray as he has been 
accustomed, morning and evening, to write when the weather 
will allow him to sit steady"; and. Captain, if you should be 
so unfortunate as to be captured by any vessel of a nation at 
war with Great Britain, I will gladly bear my share in ransom- 
ing your ship "on account of my son." A sea voyage was a 
moving experience in those days. 

Laurens and his other two boys sailed July 21, 1771, for 
Philadelphia, in whose neighborhood he spent several weeks 
with friends. He went to Bethlehem, probably to visit 
Ettwein, whom he had learned to love in South Carolina, and 
to see in their homes the Moravians whom he so much ad- 
mired. In observing the country he went as far west as 
Reading. At the next spring meeting he was elected a member 
of the American Philosophical Society, which is still one of the 
leading associations in the intellectual life of Philadelphia. 
He retained his interest in the Society to the end. In the 
meeting of August, 1787, there was read a letter from him 
expressing his appreciation of the honor of membership and 
thanks for the engraved certificate which the Society had 
recently sent its members. He promised to communicate any 
interesting or valuable information, and donated £50 sterling 
for the building soon to be erected.^ 

^ I am indebted to Dr. I. Minis Hays, Secretary of the American Philo- 
sophical Society, for these facts. The election of Laurens and Dr. George 
Milligan, a prominent physician of South Carolina, along with a number of 
others is recorded in Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 
vol. xxii., pt. iii., p. 72. The abstract of Laurens's letter of July 14, 1787, 
referred to in the text is in the MS. minutes of the Society for August 17, 
1787. 



1 84 Life of Henry Laurens 

The election to the Philosophical Society was only one 
evidence of the fact that he was received in Philadelphia as a 
man of distinction. After being burdened with "the attend- 
ance upon perpetual dinners, etc." (from which, along with all 
other earthly concerns, he came near escaping by having his 
horse fall under him), he passed leisurely overland to New 
York. Thence he sailed September 29th, carrying along with 
his own boys "Billy Fisher" and arrived at Falmouth after a 
passage of twenty-nine days.^ 

^ Laurens to Bampfield, Sept. 9, 1771, etc. I presume Billy Fisher was 
the son of Laurens's Philadelphia Quaker merchant friend William Fisher. 



CHAPTER XV 

RESIDENCE ABROAD TO EDUCATE HIS SONS, I77I-74 

LAURENS took up his residence in Westminster, London, 
in October, 1771. The Carolina Coffee House served 
him as a sort of club and headquarters. His associations 
were mainly with large London merchants, though after some 
months he appears frequently to have conversed on American 
affairs with Members of Parliament, to whom he found ready 
access through a number of his friends, such as Manning, 
Oswald, and Charles Garth, the Agent of the province of South 
Carolina and himself a member of the House of Commons. 

Morals in the colonies were at this time much higher than in 
England. One of the bitterest disillusionments of the loyal- 
ists who a few years later fled to the land for which they had 
sacrificed so much was the discovery of how unworthy of 
ruling over any upright and moral people were the English 
governing class. To the Huguenot from South Carolina there 
now came a similar shock, which deepened during the three 
years of his residence into the sad conviction of the unworthi- 
ness of King, ministers, and Parliament and changed his old 
sentiments of veneration into bitter sarcasm. Laurens's 
interests included society, education, and politics; and the 
profound disgust with which he witnessed their frivolity and 
immorality forms a frequent subject of his letters from first to 
last. The upright, religious family man could not take these 
things with the bland philosophy of the man of the world. 

Oh! the wretched state of female virtue in this kingdom! [he exclaimed]. 
. . . Chastity is certainly out of fashion in England and women talk 

185 



1 86 Life of Henry Laurens 

another language than that in which modesty was best understood twenty- 
years ago.' 

A series of disgraceful escapades in the royal family reached 
a climax just then which seriously diminished the respect of 
the public.^ The King's brother, the Duke of Cumberland, 
had just been mulcted £10,000 damages for adultery with 
Lady Grosvenor, immediately after which he repeated in 
another direction the same disgraceful conduct, and in October, 
1 77 1, he deeply offended the King by marrying an obscure 
widow. This was immediately followed by the announcement 
of the secret marriage some years before of another of the 
King's brothers, the Duke of Gloucester, to the Dowager 
Countess of Waldgrave, an illegitimate daughter of a son of 
Robert Walpole; and in the following January the King's 
sister, Carolina Matilda, was thrown into prison by her 
husband, the King of Denmark, for adultery. Laurens's first 
disrespectful utterance towards the King himself occurs in a 
letter of September 24, 1772, to Thomas Smith, of Charleston, 
relating these events : 

The news which is now circulating relates to the marriage of the Duke of 
Gloucester to Lady Waldgrave, which His Highness has at length declared 
to his royal brother, in consequence of which he is forbid the King's pres- 
ence. The marriage was celebrated six or seven years ago and it was notori- 
ous that the parties cohabitated as man and wife which gave his Majesty 
no offense. This same King while his brothers debauched men's wives and 
daughters throughout the island winked at their amours, but as soon as they 
have committed the impolitic honest act of matrimony or as soon as they 
respectively (respectably?) had declared the act, he disgraced them by 
banishment from court. You know it is said somewhere, Thou shalt not 
commit adultery — by our King to his brothers. Thou shalt not commit 
matrimony. Thus policy militates against religion; but the latter will be 
the hold-fast when the former fails and is of no use. . . . (He proceeds to 
ridicule the King's bill in Parliament to forbid the marriage of any of the 
royal family below twenty-six years of age without consent of the King or 
Parliament.) You learn from hence, good sir, that Kings and princes have 
troubles and perplexities and passions and crosses to contend withal as much 

' Letter of Dec. 5, 1771 . For a vivid picture of the corruption of English 
society at this period, see Trevelyan's American Revolution, i., 18-23. 
' Lecky, iv., 248. 



Residence Abroad 187 

as men have who move in a more humble sphere. Good health, a tolerable 
share of understanding, a sound conscience, with good rice fields are pre- 
ferable to the title of Sir Toby Tribble procured by bribery, perjury and 
fraud. ' I hope you have escaped fall fevers and fell hurricanes and that 
your old Jamaica rum will last as long as you have got an old story to tell. 

His caustic opinion of the morals of a large portion of 
English society grew no milder with time. February 28, 1 774, 
he says, in reference to the large number of negroes in England 
as the servants of visiting colonists : 

I cannot agree with the ladies, that negroes will mend the breed of 
Englishmen, and I am astonished at the supineness of the gentlemen in 
tolerating such numbers as daily appear in this city. They will have a fair 
opportunity of determining upon the merit of the female gust^ about 
the year 1780, when from a moderate computation there will be 20,000 
mulattoes in London only. 

And the plain-spoken gentleman proceeds with some quite 
satirical remarks about the possible consequences in the case 
of a certain Duchess in particular who had been very complai- 
sant towards negroes. ^ Quite a significant change in the 
spirit of a reverential American and quite a regrettable feeling 
for a man of influence to carry back to an already somewhat 
disaffected colony. 

' This is evidently a fling at Egerton Leigh, made a baronet September, 
1772 — a besmirching of an ancient title which Laurens says at another place 
he could have prevented had he cared to. It is not by any means certain, 
however, that the revelation which he could have made of Leigh's moral 
depravity (see p. 103, n. 3, above) would have weighed as seriously with 
the sort of men who then dispensed titles in England as Laurens thought. 

* Gust apparently in the sense of taste. 

3 It was estimated that at the time of the Somerset case (1771-2) there 
were 14,000 or 15,000 negroes in England — a circumstance which when 
considered in connection with Laurens's comments above and the results in 
the New World should add to the gratitude of Enghshmen for what Lord 
Mansfield saved his country. Lord Mansfield's words in postponing judg- 
ment for six months hardly admit of doubt that he was wilUng for the 
masters to foresee the decision and get their property out of the way. See 
State Trials, xx., 80, and McCrady, ii., 384. At one time the negro page 
was considered essential to the lady upon the streets, as is illustrated by 
the frequency with which Hogarth introduces a negro maid or boy into 
his pictures. 



1 88 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens's old distrust of English schools as safe homes was 
not removed by nearer observation. He never ceased to 
inveigh against the fearful wickedness of London and the folly 
of sending boys there to be educated. He was horrified to 

learn that "my old neighbor has learnt to play at cards 

and makes Sunday subservient to visiting Richmond and Kew. 
I was never more amazed at anything. Sister Laurens and 
you wiU say, Is it possible? But for goodness sake let it go 
no further."^ 

These exclamations, we must remember, come from a strict 
Huguenot reared in a quiet provincial town. But accounts 
from others who would not be horrified at cards and Sunday 
jaunts show that his aversion was not ungrounded. At 
Oxford the sad degradation into which both instructors and 
pupils had sunk at the beginning of the century had not been 
remedied. Gibbon lamented the fourteen months which he 
spent there as "the most idle and unprofitable of his whole 
life," and records that discipline, examinations, and syste- 
matic instruction were practically non-existent, while "the 
dull and deep potations of the fellows excused the brisk in- 
temperance of youth, and the velvet cap of a Gentleman 
Commoner was the cap of liberty."^ Accounts of the esca- 
pades at Eton about 1765 show that these traditions were 
still honored. 3 

John and James were also placed with little Harry who had 
preceded them at Rev. Richard Clarke's in Islington, London; 
but he did not prove a skillful teacher and they were removed. 
Jimmy was placed to school "at Winson Green in Warwick- 
shire, about two miles off" from Birmingham. The father's 
protracted and painstaking search could find no English school 
which satisfied him for the older boys, and accordingly early 
in the summer of 1772 he took them to Geneva, where they 
spent two years.'* "In 1764, the Genevese still adhered with 

' Laurens to James Laurens, Nov. 11, 1773. 

* Lecky, iii., 18-20; Trevelyan, i., 34. 
3 Trevelyan, i., 33 and 391-2. 

* Confusion in regard to this leads Wharton to state that John Laurens 
was educated in France. In French, though not in France, would have 



Residence Abroad 189 

almost passionate tenacity to a Spartian simplicity of morals 
and manners ; and they dreaded the invasion of luxury only 
less than the incursion of a foreign prince. . . . Painting, 
music, literature, and the drama naturally suffered under this 
iron hand, and the great men of Geneva had been chiefly sci- 
entists, philosophers, and mathematicians. Apart from other 
advantages, this austerity of manners added to its desirability 
in the eyes of anxious parents as a place of education. There 
were no objects of dissipation, theatres, or public places of 
amusement."^ Along with the stern republicanism of politics 
and society, the Consistory, dating from the days of Calvin, 
still supervised education and morals, and where the subject 
was at all favorable, this environment left a strong and last- 
ing impression of Puritanism and reform upon its subjects.* 
The latter part of the eighteenth century and first part of the 
nineteenth was, moreover, the most brilliant period in the 
intellectual history of Geneva. ^ The esteem in which this 
ancient republican city was held for its schools had drawn 
at the time of Laurens's residence sixty English youths, 
among them the Duke of Hamilton, Lords Stanhope, Ma- 
hon, Chesterfield, Lumley, etc. They were so studious that 
it was agreed to exchange visits only in the afternoon.'' 

The education of the boys proceeded very satisfactorily. 
After a year's experience with the two older ones at Gen- 
eva, Laurens declared that he vastly preferred that place 
to England for young boys, that there were more progress, 

served the same purpose and have been strictly correct. Mrs. Ravenel 
has the same error. 

' Stanhope and Gooch, Life of Charles, Third Earl Stanhope, 7. 

^ Ibid., 7 et seq.; 16; 20. ^ Britannica, nth edition, Geneva. 

< John Laurens to his uncle James Laurens, Dec. 19, 1773, in Laurens 
MSS. in the L. I. Hist. Soc. I take it that he means the sixty "English" 
to include American colonists, as they had not yet come "to be called 
by some new name." Whether he gives some of the noble youths the titles 
which as yet really only belonged to their fathers I have not enquired. I do 
not understand why he should name Lord Stanhope, the father, and Lord 
Mahon, the son, even though the father was pursuing his own reading at 
Geneva. Cf. Stanhope and Gooch's Charles, Third Earl Stanhope, 2, 5, 
et seq. 



190 Life of Henry Laurens 

better discipline, better moral atmosphere, and better teach- 
ing. He also took great delight in the place on his own ac- 
count, and from October to December, 1773, visited there and 
in other portions of the continent. The expense of keeping 
Henry, aged about ten, in Geneva, he writes his good friend 
Dr. Alexander Garden, was as much as it had been at Chelsea 
— £70 or £80 a year, including clothes and all other items ; for 
John, as much as it would be at Oxford. Economy would 
bring all expenses, clothing included, for a young gentleman 
at Geneva within £140; £200 was an average, but John spent 
more because of having early been "taken notice of in several 
polite families," which occasioned the expense of receiving 
their civilities and of entertaining in return, all of which Mr. 
Laurens fully approved. Not much time could have been con- 
sumed in this way if John did justice to all his studies, for they 
included Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Belles-Lettres, Phys- 
ics, History, Geography, Mathematics, experimental philoso- 
phy, fencing, riding, drawing, and reading the Civil Law; and 
after he declared his intention, in 1772, of becoming a barrister, 
his father sent him a copy of Blackstone for private reading.^ 
In August, 1774, Laurens went to Paris to meet his sons on 
their way to England, but they took a shorter road and missed 
him. In October John took up the study of law in London. 
In order to keep the younger brothers under his influence, 
Henry was placed in the middle of September in Westminster 
School, though James was left for the time at Winson Green. ^ 
The beautiful friendship with his eldest and favorite son which 
illuminates the years until the death of the gallant young 
man in 1782 was developing with John's maturity, and al- 
ready the father was beginning to write his best and fullest 
letters to this splendid young fellow.' 

' Laurens to A. Garden, Feb. 19, 1774, and to James Laurens, Feb. 17, 
1774. Cf. A Book about Lawyers, quoted by McCrady, ii., 476, which 
states that "a young gentleman Templar expected his father to allow him 
£150 a year, and on encouragement would spend twice that amovmt in the 
same time." 

''Laurens to John Laurens, October 17, 1774. 

3 Cf. the following from a letter of the father to John, Oct. 8, 1773: A 



Residence Abroad 191 

Laurens was in London when Lord Mansfield rendered his 
famous decision in the Somerset case, June 22, 1772, that a 
slave became free by being brought into England. Laurens 
had himself brought along a body servant, and as a large 
slaveholder he would naturally not relish the court's doctrine, 
yet his letter to Dr. Alexander Garden in Charleston, August 
20, 1772, appears to contain an approval of Lord Mansfield's 
position . He writes : 

I will not say a word of Lord Mansfield's judgment in the case of Stuart 
V. Somerset until we meet, save only that his Lordship's administration was 
suitable to the times. The able Dunning set out on the defendant's part' 
by declaring that he was no advocate for slavery, and in my humble opinion 
he was not an advocate for his client, nor was there a word said to the pur- 
pose on either side. 

Dunning's argument was indeed a lame, apologetic, techni- 
cal, quibbling affair, seeking to keep a man a slave without 
approving slavery. It is hard to learn from this whether 
Laurens approved or disapproved of the decision. His refer- 
ence to "his Lordship's administration" as "suitable to the 
times" might refer to the danger of bringing large numbers of 
blacks into England, to which, we remember, he elsewhere 
alludes, or might be an acknowledgment of the growing anti- 
slavery sentiment in England, or a sneer at the decision's 
having been delayed long enough to allow the removal of the 
14,000 or 15,000 slaves estimated then to be in England. The 
most natural interpretation seems to be that he approved 
Lord Mansfield's delaying his decision for six months after 
warning masters, in order to avoid the flood of litigation and 
financial loss which his '.plainly announced decision might 
occasion. We know that within a very short time he declared 
himself for complete emancipation and said that he had long 
abhorred slavery, and that he had several years before this 

certain old friend has disgraced himself "by an attachment to a trumpery 
woman. . . . AU, all, sacrificed upon the knees of a little freckled faced 
ordinary wench. Let other men commiserate his wretchedness and take 
heed." 

' Dunning argued against the negro Somerset and in favor of the right of 
control by his master, Stuart. — State Trials, xx., 1-82. 



192 Life of Henry Laurens 

come to condemn the foreign slave trade. A letter from his 
rich merchant brother James, in Charleston, Jtily 8, 1773, 
may also have a bearing on the question to what extent the 
germs of emancipation sentiment were sleeping in South 
Carolina at this time. James writes that he has received a 
very advantageous offer in the slave trade, but that, besides 
the risk of taking up a new line, 

Be that as it may, I disapprove and will have no concern in the Guinea 
trade. You may remember I refused it in the year 1 767 when you were so 
kind as to make me an offer of your interest in that business, and thank God 
neither my circumstances or inclination make it more necessary to engage 
in new concerns now. 

We shall see to what lengths Henry Laurens went in 1776 in 
views which he then declared he had entertained for many 
years. 

Laurens's habitual consideration for his slaves appears 
frequently in letters during his stay abroad to his agent at 
home. He writes, April 6, 1773, to Gervais that he under- 
stands that an overseer on one of his Georgia plantations 

has provided no machine for pounding out his crop but depends 
whoUy upon the violent labor of the poor negroes. It is not therefore the 
lack of a few barrels of rice on my part that gives me uneasiness, but the 
thoughts of having my negroes crueUy treated and driven by severity to 
such practices as were never before known among them. . . . Submit to 
make less rice and keep my negroes at home in some degree of happiness 
in preference to large crops acquired by rigour and barbarity to those poor 
creatures. 

He discharged that overseer. To another on a Georgia 
plantation he writes, September 23, 1774: 

It gives me pleasure to hear that you have taken poor old Cuffee from 
hard labor or disgrace. I cannot be a judge at this distance of the cause 
for which he was so severely punished, and was very sorry to find that 
there was nobody to interpose on his behalf. I never will encourage Cuffee 
or any other negro in idleness or insolent opposition to an overseer; but I 
cannot from any consideration of gain to myself suffer my slaves to be 
treated with cruelty. 

Laurens had intended to return to America in the summer 
of 1772, but the delay in settling his sons and the demands of 



Residence Abroad 193 

other private business caused him to postpone his departure 
until the spring of 1773, when the increasingly critical state of 
affairs and his desire to be of service to South Carolina and 
America in general kept him in England still longer. In 
July, 1773, St. Michael's parish, expecting his early arrival, 
elected him a member of Assembly. Finding it impossible 
to foretell definitely his return, he resigned, and consequently 
was not again a member of the provincial legislature, as this 
was the last house elected under the royal government.^ 

Laurens utilized every occasion for defending the colonies 
in general and criticized many of the great merchants who had 
grown rich on America as being, without intending it, her 
worst enemies, since they think only of increasing trade, "but 
have no idea of opposing attempts to deprive her of her most 
valuable privileges." But "there are many honest men in 
the city too ; nay, I will not positively say there may not one 
be found even in the ministry."^ He gives an amusing 
account of a set-to at a London tea-table from which his 
antagonist retired with a threat to bring Dean Tucker against 
him; but from what he learned of that gentleman he found 
him equipped only with the same old "thread bare, ten thou- 
sand times defeated claims . . . ; so that I have nothing to 
fear from the Dean but the wrath (if he is not a very good- 
natured man) which sometimes is substituted for reason by 
gentlemen in black." 

The news from Boston brought matters to a crisis. Laurens 
realized the crucial nature of the issue and that if the colonists 
were conquered now tame submission must be the program 
for the future. He wrote to his brother in Charleston: 

Oh that I could but effectually alarm my cotmtrymen at this important 
crisis to be firm, frugal and virtuous, to put away from them all trifling 
amusements and to prepare to stand the shock of living in homely economy 
within themselves, under the pressure of either their own necessary resolu- 
tions on (the) one hand or on the other of every discouragement to their 
trade and commerce by new duties on, and withdrawing bounties from, 

'Laurens to R. Lowndes, Sept. 29, 1773, and to Laurences of Poictiers, 
Feb. 25, 1774; Drayton's Memoirs, ii., 46. 
^ Laurens to Peter Mazyck, April 10, 1772. 
13 



194 Life of Henry Laurens 

produce and merchandise imported and exported — ^possibly by a new stamp 
act left to execute itself or to throw us into dire distress or confusion, which 
has been whispered in my ear as one among many suggestions of measures 
for our reformation. We are, I am sure we are, upon the main subject, in 
the right. Fortitude, frugality and virtue will conduct us safely through 
the ordeal and establish the happiness of our children to latest genera- 
tions. . . . Mischief is hatching for us; the King is very angry — the whole 
ministerial band inimical to the liberties of America. What will come 
forth is yet uncertain, and we shall not arrive at a knowledge of the 
designs against us so speedily and so certainly as we used to do. ' 

While Laurens opposed with, all his might every aggression 
on the liberties of the colonies, he deprecated all mob violence 
or other illegality, as these alone could furnish the ministers 
with the least standing ground. Accordingly he thought that 
South Carolina's action in compelling the revenue officers to 
store the tea and refusing to allow it to enter the channels 
of commerce was better than the conduct of Boston or 
Philadelphia. 

I won't say the people have proceeded too far in drowning and forcing 
back the tea; possibly it may prove to have been the most effectual and 
therefore wisest method; but at present I commend the proceeding at 
Charlestown in preference to all the rest: the consignees refuse the com- 
missions; the people win not purchase the commodity; it must remain in 
store and perish or be returned at the expense of those who sent it. There 
is a constitutional stubbornness in such conduct which must be approved of 
every true Englishman and open the understanding of those whose stub- 
bom attempts to ensnare America are supported by no other plea than 
power. " 

And to this "constitutional stubbornness" this orderly 
friend of liberty clung until the last ray of hope in that direc- 
tion had vanished. 

To various correspondents Laurens expressed his lack of 
confidence in the wisdom and character of Parliament in deal- 
ing with the crisis, and he already anticipated that their 
bungling would entail the separation of the colonies from the 
mother country. He was consulted by several members of 
Parliament to whom he steadily declared that the only hope 

' Laurens to James Laurens, Feb. 5, 1774. 
^Laurens to George Appleby, Feb. 15, 1774. 



Residence Abroad 195 

of accommodation lay in the repeal of every law for taxing 

the Americans. To his son John he wrote: 

This day or to-morrow American affairs wUl be brought before Parlia- 
ment. From their wise management in the late quarrel with the printer 
WoodfaU and Parson Home, which exposes the first minister and all his 
train to derision, there can be no doubt of their treating with propriety such 
a bagatelle as the recovery of loss of the affections of three millions of sub- 
jects. However that may be, that individuals who speak their own and the 
sense of those within their atmosphere, are bewildered and perplexed, is 
most certain. I have had the honor of conversing with several members, 
and particularly for two or three hours Saturday morning with a very sensi- 
ble man of our acquaintance; and upon my honor, the best scheme I have 
yet heard is mere weakness. Violence they are not disposed to; violence 
would be attended at best with infinite hazard. But the success of violent 
measures would be extremely vmcertain; and what less than violence can 
subdue a people who think their claims are justly founded and who are 
determined to maintain their liberty? Our acquaintance above alluded 
to put the question to me after I had alluded to his politics. What then 
would you have us do, Colonel? — My opinion. Sir, is of no weight with Par- 
liament, but to you I submit it: the recent cause of offence is a matter 
between subject and subject; leave the dispute there and all wUl be well 
again. Slumber on the supposed opposition to government, and before the 
rising of your house repeal all those laws which are calctdated for raising 
a revenue on the colonists without their own consent. They are galling 
to the Americans, yield no benefit to the mother country; you disagree 
among yourselves concerning the right, and every man sees and acknowl- 
edges the inexpediency of such taxation. What, then, are we contending for? 
Imaginary emolument at the risque of thousands of hves and rmlUons of 
pounds, possibly of the dignity of the British Empire. Let this remark 
persuade you: Here your opinions on the grand point jar; in America all 
are so thoroughly agreed that a union is formed for mutual defence which 
in past times had been held unnatural and impracticable. 

I see no medium between compulsory measures by fleets and armies and 
a wise retraction on this side. If the former should be recommended by 
Parliament, you and I had better be at Altamaha.^ 

Laurens was soon to find that John proposed to put his 
closing recommendation to a practical application more 
promptly than it had been intended. 

In the general crisis Laurens still regarded the rights of 
the South Carolina Commons in the Wilkes fund dispute as 
involving the same principle as the whole question of taxing 

^ Laurens to John Laurens, Feb. 21, 1774. Cf. also to Garden, Feb. 19. 



196 Life of Henry Laurens 

America and as in no wise inferior in import to the people of 
that province. He coupled that with his plan for all the 
colonies unitedly to pay for the Boston tea. Not a single 
constitutional right was to be surrendered, for 

a tame submission will work the most severe reproach upon all our past 
struggles; the same discipline will be exercised in order to cram down the 
instructions of the 14th April and every other mandate which ministers 
shall think proper for keeping us in subjection to the taskmaster who 
shall be put over us. Our House of Assembly will be composed of excisemen 
and taxgatherers, the council of downright placemen, the governor will be 
a military bashaw and an American a most contemptible character. . . . 
God forbid that I should wantonly suggest any measures for injuring or 
distressing this country; but if by the violence and injustice of the rulers 
of this country we are driven to adopt and pursue measures for the interest 
of future generations, we cannot, we shall not, be blamed by wise and dis- 
passionate men.' 

He recommended commercial boycott of England to bring 
her to submission and requested that these be spread in South 
Carolina as his views. 

Events in England gave small hope to the patriot who 
attempted to stand on Laurens's platform. In January, 
1774, Franklin presented as Agent for Massachusetts a peti- 
tion for the removal of their Governor and Chief Justice. 
Instead of receiving a judicial hearing he was subjected by 
Solicitor General Wedderburn to a grilling which so delighted 
the Privy Council that they gave themselves up to shouts of 
derisive laughter without dignity or self-respect — an hour's 
merriment which cost the empire dear in cutting some of the 
strongest ties of affection and sentiment which still held many 
of the strongest men in the colonies. Not only was the 
petition rejected as "groundless, vexatious and scandalous," 
but the most distinguished American then in public life was 
dismissed from his post of Deputy Postmaster General for 
America and threatened with arrest.^ 

Dr. Franklin's late miscarriage in supporting the Massachusetts petition 
against Governor Hutchinson [wrote Laurens, March, 1774], is of the 

'Letter of April 9, 1774. 

^Trevelyan, i., 157; Lecky, iv., 150; Bancroft, iii., 461. 



Residence Abroad 197 

utmost prejudice to the American cause. His influence lost, we have lost 
our principal advocate. An American and Rebel or enemy to the interests 
of Great Britain are now synonymous. ... I long to be at home to share 
the fate, whether good or bad, with my countrymen. Wisdom on their 
part will do more than arms. 

The Quebec act and the acts against Massachusetts were 
hurried through ParHament. We few Americans here, says 
Laurens, have signed "strong and spirited petitions" against 
them. Of the thirty whose names were signed against the 
Boston Port Bill, sixteen were South Carolinians.^ It was 
Laurens's duty to present one of these petitions. When asked 
by the Earl of Dartmouth for his opinion of the proposed 
legislation, he replied : 

That if the bills respecting America then pending in Parliament should 
pass into Acts the people of the several Colonies from Georgia to New Hamp- 
shire would be animated to form such an Union & Phalanx of resistance 
as he had theretofore believ'd that nothing less than a divine Miracle could 
establish.^ 

Almost amid the sound of arms, with a heart saddened at 
the prospect of a warring, divided empire of which he had 
grown up a devoted, patriotic son, Laurens prepared to leave 
England. I hear on every side, he wrote, that 

one British soldier would beat six Yankees; be that as it may,. I see the 
tragedy of five acts, as our converted countryman W. H. Drayton terms the 
present dispute in a letter addressed to the high court of Congress at 
Philadelphia, will not be finished so soon as some people fondly hoped for 
at the dissolution of the late Parliament. 3 

Sailing from Falmouth November 7, 1774, he landed in 
Charleston December nth, after a passage of thirty-four days, 
in which he narrowly escaped death by the ship's running 
aground in the night about ten miles off the South Carolina 

' McCrady, ii., 733, and note. McCrady says fifteen in the text, follow- 
ing a queer mistake of Drayton — Revolution, i., no — due apparently to the 
misspelling of Laurens's name, but the list both in McCrady and Drayton 
specifies sixteen South Carolinians. 

^ Laurens's petition to Ministry, June 23, 1781, as given below. Chapter 
XXIV. 3 Letter of Oct. 22, 1774. 



198 Life of Henry Laurens 

coast. The vessel was got off largely through his presence of 
mind. He had the privilege of five months with his daughters 
and brother, whom he was to see no more for seven years 
after they sailed for England about the first of June. ^ 

/ '5. C. Hist. Mag., v., 11, n., quoting gazettes. Also Laurens's letters. 

I Wharton, following apparently the flimsy and spiteful sketch of Laurens 
in the British Political Magazine of October, 1780, p. 636, states that 
while on this visit to England he made "judicious investments" in the 
public funds. I have f otmd no reference in his correspondence to any such 
investments; his wiU speaks of none, and judging from his general business 
habits at this time, I would consider such investments out of his line. The 
carelessness of many of Wharton's statements regarding Laurens and the 
unreliability of the Political Magazine sketch lead one to doubt the bond 
story. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN SOUTH CAROLINA DURING 

1775-77 

THE three years of Laurens's absence saw no peace in 
the disturbed politics of South Carolina. The Wilkes 
fund controversy, we recall, was carried to its most bitter 
extreme and the Governor and Council were almost completely 
shorn of their influence. In the struggle going on at the same 
time over taxation by Parliament, the non-importation associa- 
tion had been abandoned in December, 1770, except as to tea, 
and soon the controversy, narrowed to this, went to the final 
crisis. We have seen that Laurens's three years abroad caused 
no break in his political interests. January 9, 1775, four 
weeks after his return, he was elected a member for the city of 
Charleston to the First Provincial Congress. He continued 
one of the most prominent leaders in South Carolina affairs 
until his departure for Congress in 1777. 

Laurens's conduct during the months when the British 
government was being extinguished in South Carolina squares 
perfectly with his character as we have come to know it in 
the struggle for constitutional rights in the Commons House 
of Assembly. He is always found among the leaders for 
constitutional freedom, but he is generally with the more 
moderate and conservative wing of the party of liberty. This 
fair-minded moderation combined with his undoubted devo- 
tion to the cause of his country served to soften many an 
asperity and win numbers who would otherwise have been per- 
manently repelled, while it likewise helped to secure justice 
in the treatment of those who differed with the revolutionists. 

199 



200 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens's position continued, so long as it was possible to 
maintain such an attitude, to be that of a loyal British subject, 
but one who was determined, like many a British patriot in 
years gone by, to maintain at the cost of life itself, if need be, 
the constitutional liberties of his country. He bore his part 
in the acts of revolutionary resistance and loyally stood by 
those even who acted with indiscretion in the cause; but he 
was temperamentally unable to dehght in confusion, violence, 
and mobs and looked upon separation from the sovereign of 
his birth as only the last resort to preserve freedom. To Lord 
William Campbell, the last royal Governor of the province, 
he said in June, 1775: 

Some of their (the Americans') measures I condemn, but I condemn them 
as improper modes of resentment. Errors will appear even on the side of 
the injured party in all great quarrels. 

The origin and progress of the extra-legal organs of resist- 
ance in South CaroHna is a wonderful tribute to the political 
sagacity of the people and will serve at this point to make plain 
the situation at the time of the First Provincial Congress in 
January, 1775. These revolutionary bodies did not originate, 
as might be inferred from the statement usually made, in the 
great mass meeting of July 6-8, 1774, nor even in the call for 
that meeting by a number of "principal gentlemen,"^ but 
go back without break to the first meeting to resist the landing 
of the tea, December 4, 1773.^ The shipload of tea intended 
for Charleston to "try the matter with the Americans " arrived 
December 2, 1773. The next morning appeared handbills and 
placards calling for a meeting of the citizens of the province in 
the Great Hall over the Exchange. Col. G. G. Powell, one 
of the trusted leaders in the events of the past few years, was 
made chairman. A resolution was adopted neither to import 
nor buy any tea liable to a duty for raising a revenue in 

' McCrady, ii., 103; Ramsay, ed. of 1858, i., 128. 

' The narrative exhibiting this connection is taken from my pamphlet, 
"The Arrival of the Tea and the Origin of the Extra-legal Organs of Re- 
volution in South Carolina"; Publications of the Vanderbilt Southern His- 
tory Society, No. 4; 1900. 



Revolutionary Movement, i']^S~ll ^^^ 

America, and the resignation of the consignees of the present 
cargo was secured. A committee was appointed to secure 
signatures and retain general supervision of the whole matter. 
December 17th a second meeting was held, with the same 
gentleman as chairman. It was resolved that the tea should 
not be landed, and the business which should be considered at 
the next meeting was announced. The "General Meeting," 
as it was called, was thus assuming a regular and permanent 
organization, with the same chairman, a standing sort of 
executive committee, and business announced for the next 
meeting. 

No consignee calling for the tea at the expiration of the legal 
period of twenty days during which a ship might lie unloaded, 
it was removed by the customs officers very early on the morn- 
ing of December 22d and stored in a hired wareroom under the 
Exchange. No one appeared to oppose the officers, although 
anonymous threats of burning the ship and other violence had 
been received. 

January 20, 1774, the "General Meeting" again convened 
and took a step of great importance in systematizing its 
authority and shaping the extra-legal organs of a new govern- 
ment. A new standing committee to be known as "The 
General Committee" was appointed, a quorum of which was to 
be fifteen. It was to keep the tea agreement constantly in 
charge and when necessary convene the "General Meeting" 
of the citizens. The first call for a General Meeting by the 
General Committee was for March 3d, under the "Liberty 
Tree " ; but the weather on that day proving very bad, "every 
man that had the good of his country at heart " was summoned 
for the 9th. ^ On the i6th an important General Meeting was 
held; the enforcement of non-importation and boycott were 
provided for and the standing General Committee was invested 
with the authority of executing the resolutions of the General 
Meeting. 

, Upon receipt of news of the Boston Port BiU and the 
action of the Boston town meeting in reply, the General 
^^ I find no account of any meeting on the 9th ; perhaps it was again 
prevented. 



202 Life of Henry Laurens 

Committee after consulting the leading citizens of Charleston 
issued a call for a General Meeting for the 6th of July.^ 
It is with this meeting, because of its unprecedented size and 
the startling character of its action, that the accounts of the 
revolutionary organs in South Carolina have usually begun; 
but it is very evident that there had been for six months an 
active and systematic organization of which this was an organic 
part in its regular order, and that the "principal gentlemen" 
who are sometimes represented as initiating the movement in 
the summer of 1774 were really a standing committee acting 
in an official representative capacity. This meeting, however, 
marked a very distinct advance and justly stands in great 
prominence. The Charleston leaders dispatched letters to 
influential men in the more remote sections requesting the 
election of delegates, hoping by thus designating certain 
individuals to secure representation of the entire province. 
Only in having elected representatives did the July meeting 
differ in its composition from the four which had preceded it, 
and only partially did it differ in this respect. Yet the attempt 
to transform a mainly local mass meeting into a province- wide 
representative assembly was of immense significance. As 
Drayton says, "This was the first attempt to collect a meeting 
of the people on so constitutional a principle. " ^ Each section 
elected as many as it pleased or none. One hundred and four 
delegates attended from outside the city, ^ to whom the Gen- 
eral Committee added themselves as representing Charleston. 
Although it is true, as McCrady states, that the decision of the 
meeting that any person in attendance might vote destroyed 
its representative character, it is also true that it contained 
more men from outside the old parishes than any body which 
had ever assembled in any legislative capacity and is thus the 
beginning of the representative popular government of South 
Carolina from that day to this. 

The further history of the tea is soon told. June 26, July 
19, and November 14, 1774, small lots arrived, to be stored as 
before, except the last, which, with consent of the owners, was 
made "an oblation to Neptune" in the presence of the Com- 

' Drayton, i., 112. ' Jb., i., 113. J lb., i., 126. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 ^^3 

mittee of Observation and a great concourse of citizens. 
The same took place at Georgetown. ^ The tea lay in the store- 
room for almost three years, when the "President" of South 
Carolina wrote to the delegation in Congress directing them 
to secure permission to sell it for the benefit of the State's 
treasury. Congress seemed to think that the proceeds should 
go to the Continental treasury or be appropriated to reimburse 
Americans whose property had been confiscated in England. 
The South Carolina delegation in alarm secured permission to 
withdraw their motion and wrote advising their Legislature 
to sell the tea at once.^ Accordingly the State Legislature 
passed an act ordering the tea to be sold and the proceeds 
applied to the public service, and we read advertisements by 
the commissioners appointed for the purpose announcing the 
sale for October 14th. ^ Thinking doubtless that an article 
of such historic associations would bring souvenir prices, the 
Legislature directed that it should be sold in quantities not 
exceeding twelve pounds at 25 shillings a pound for Bohea 
and Green; £3 for Congo and Souchong, and £6 for the best 
Hyson ; which in the paper currency of the time at one-seventh 
of its nominal value would represent in our denomination 86 
cents, $2.08 and $4.17.'' 

The General Meeting of the inhabitants of the province 
called for July 6th by the committee of the previous General 
Meeting and the parent of all government in South Carolina 
from that day to this, was thus the fifth or sixth in an unbroken 

^ November 3d an incident occurred which disproved the sneer that the 
colonists were glad enough to drink smuggled tea, when 669 pounds that 
had been smuggled in were returned to the ports of shipment to show that 
the resistance to the duty was not merely to save the few pence involved. 

* The letter of the delegates to President Rutledge giving an account of 
the debate in Congress is quoted in the Journals of the Continental Con- 
gress, Ford's edition, iv., 278-9, from Force's American Archives, 5th series, 
iii., 16. 

3 S. C. and General American Gazette, Sept. 25-Oct. 2, 1776. 

■» Ramsay — DufiEie's edition of 1858, p. 127 — simply says the tea was 
stored; Simms — Hist, of S. C, 160 — says it "rotted in the storehouses." 
Whether the tea was found to be damaged when opened for sale, I do not 
know. I find no reference to its rotting. 



204 Life of Henry Laurens 

series leading straight back to the tea incident of December, 

1773- 
In the great assembly of July Colonel Powell was, as usual, 

chairman. The meeting remained in session for three days, 
adopted a declaration of rights, elected five delegates to the 
Continental Congress, enlarged the General Committee to 
ninety-nine, directed it to act as a Committee of Correspond- 
ence and otherwise increased its powers. We have now 
reached the point at which occurred the definite transition from 
loose semi-organization to systematic representative govern- 
ment. In the autumn the General Committee of ninety-nine 
summoned for January, 1775, the First Provincial Congress 
and assigned to each district the number of representatives it 
should elect. Then was bom the Legislature of what was soon 
to be the State of South Carolina, and a people so imbued with 
constitutional principles as to be able to call them into activity 
without one act of violence found themselves again under the 
direction of their elected representatives. 

Upon its adjournment the First Provincial Congress of 
January, 1775, confided authority to a many-headed 
executive denominated the General Committee, but a very 
different body from the one which had previously borne that 
name. It was to consist of the thirty Congressmen from 
Charleston and any others who might be in town, twenty-one 
to be a quorum. The Committee at once effected an organ- 
ization. Henry Laurens was elected President and began his 
service as head of the executive department during the twelve 
eventful months that were to follow.^ The General Commit- 
tee, with the sub-committees which it appointed, constituted 
the entire government of South Carolina from the adjournment 
of the Provincial Congress in January until its reassembling in 
June and remained a sort of residuary legatee of authority 
even after the creation of the Council of Safety in June until 
the last meeting of the Second Provincial Congress in February, 
1776, which set up a State Constitution.^ Before it were 
fought out the fierce controversies over the enforcement of the 
continental non-importation association; it had the public 

' Drayton, i., 175, 180, 222; ii., 93. ' Cf. McCrady, iii., 5. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 205 

arms and powder seized, and became the forum for the struggle 
between the extremists and moderates on the question of arm- 
ing the colony and forcing the revolution to further lengths. ^ 

The Provincial Congress had considered the seizing of the 
military stores and provided for the appointment of a Secret 
Committee if the necessity should arise. News of the resolu- 
tion of Parliament to suppress America by force arriving April 
14th convinced the General Committee that the time had 
arrived; President Charles Pinckney of the Congress accord- 
ingly appointed the Secret Committee and on the night of 
the 2ist, in the presence of him and President Laurens and 
other prominent men, the plan was executed which made the 
participants British traitors or American patriots according 
as the outcome should determine. 

In the critical stage which affairs had now, reached, a vigor- 
ous minority centered about Christopher Gadsden, William 
Henry Drayton and Arthur Middleton were pushing for inde- 
pendence, while a larger group led by John Rutledge and 
RawUns Lowndes, though prepared to defend their rights by 
arms if necessary, yet entertained no intention of secession, 
but strove to keep within the limits of many a previous 
struggle for liberty under the crown. Between these groups 
stood LaureUv'^, so far as a man may be said to stand between 
the radicals and conservatives without, in effect, throwing his 
weight to the conservatives.^ 

Under these circumstances the First Provincial Congress met 
for its second session, June i, 1775. The conservative Mr. 
Charles Pinckney, always a reluctant revolutionist, resigned 
the Presidency, events moving too fast for him, and was 
succeeded by Laurens. ^ Early in the session was presented 

» McCrady, ii., 774, 787, 790; Drayton, i., 180-7, 219-22. 

" Cf. Drayton, i., 250. 

3 Col. Charles Pinckney, born 1731 ; son of William Pinckney and Ruth 
Brewton. A reluctant participant in the Revolution. Finally took 
British protection after the fall of Charleston in 1780 and was amerced 
therefor by the Jacksonborough Legislature 12 % of his estate. Died Sept. 
22, 1782. He was the father of Charles Pinckney, the famous four- times 
Governor and member of the Federal Constitutional Convention, and first 



2o6 Life of Henry Laurens 

the following pledge known as "the Association," which 
had been unanimously adopted May 12th by the General 
Committee for recommendation to the Provincial Congress to 
be signed as a test by all citizens : 

To unite ourselves under every tie of religion and of honour, and associ- 
ate as a band in her (America's) defence against every foe, and we do 
solemnly promise, that whenever her Continental or Provincial Councils 
shall decree it necessary we wiU go forth and be ready to sacrifice our lives 
and fortunes in attempting to secure her Freedom and Safety. ^ 

A hot debate ensued between the moderate and advanced 
parties, as the pledge to "go forth and be ready to sacrifice 
our lives and fortunes" was justly dreaded by the one and 
welcomed by the other as tending to place the contest beyond 
the possibility of compromise. The association was adopted, 
concluding with the pledge to "hold all those persons inimical 
to the liberty of the colonies who shall refuse to subscribe," 
and was ordered to be signed by the President and all the 
members and every patriot throughout the province." 

An association seeking to force men into submission by 
branding all who refused as enemies to their country crossed 

cousin of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. — A. S. SaUey, Jr., in S. C. Hist. 
Mag., ii., 135-8; McCrady, iii., 587; Royal Gazette, Sept. 28, 1782. I 
am under obligation to Miss Mabel Louise Webber, Secretary of the S. C. 
Historical Asso., for these references. 

'McCrady, ii., 791, changes Drayton's statement (i., 247) that "the 
Special Committee were under the necessity of postponing the object of 
their wishes" of having the Association signed then and there by the order 
of the General Committee into the statement that "The whole matter was 
postponed. " The motion to postpone the whole matter (' ' to recommit the 
association") was lost by 25 to 23. Laurens to John Laurens, May 15, 
I775> says: "But three days ago I put the question, 'Is it your pleasure, 
gentlemen, to agree with your Committee? ' When the following associa- 
tion was unanimously approved of . . . . This association, I say, was un- 
animously approved of in the General Committee, 48 members present — it 
will be recommended to the Provincial Congress at their first meeting, 
on the first of June. I have no doubt of its favorable reception there, 
and I believe it will be subscribed to by the Inhabitants throughout this 
Colony." — Hist. Mag., x., 100. 

=" S. C. Hist. Mag., viii., 141-2. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 207 

Laurens in one of his dearest principles, the sacredness of 
individual freedom in thought, word, and action. The warmth 
with which he favored circulating the association on the 15th 
of May and the greater warmth with which he opposed 
branding non-signers as enemies of their country on the 4th 
of June suggest that the denunciatory clause was added in the 
Congress, a view which is supported by the fact that he does 
not give it in quoting to John the association as adopted in the 
General Committee. Nothing could convince him that men 
whom he had known for life as good citizens were deserving of 
tar, feathers, confiscation, and banishment because they did 
not view the problems of the times just as he did. In public 
and in private he had not hesitated to enforce his calm, just, 
and courageous views . The order to sign the association offered 
an opportunity to place upon record his principles which he 
availed himself of in a manner that does him lasting honor. It 
was Sunday morning, June 4th, 1775, and the King's birthday, 
both which circumstances added to the solemnity of the 
occasion. Rarely was Laurens more highly complimented 
than by the manner in which his address was received at this 
critical moment by the excited assembly over which he pre- 
sided. The order to sign having been passed, "I rose," he 
says, "and taking the paper in my hand, desired to be heard, 
and having obtained full permission, delivered my sentiments 
nearly in the following words'':^ 

Gentlemen, 

After I have explained myself upon two parts of this Association I shall 
obey your order and sign it with alacrity. If I subscribe with mental 
reservations I shall be criminal in my own view and subject myself to the 
charge on some future day of hypocrisy and dissimulation. This paper, 
gentlemen, is in its nature and may be in its consequences the most import- 
ant of any to which my signature has been annexed. I compare it to my 
last will and testament, but with these awful distinctions: the former is 

' In the handwriting of Henry Laurens, President of the Congress, says 
editor of S. C. Hist, and Genealogical Mag., from which, vol. viii., p. 142, 
this selection is taken. I have modernized capitalization and punctuation 
in this quotation, as the carelessness and haste in these particulars can 
serve no purpose here except to divert attention from the sense. 



2o8 Life of Henry Laurens 

signed by mj^ hand and sealed with a bit of common black wax ; this is to 
be signed by my hand and may be sealed with my blood. By the former 
I transmit my estate to my children according to my own will; by signing 
this I may forfeit my estate into the hands of my enemies. An engagement 
of this magnitude requires some consideration, and although I hold myself 
bound by the majority of voices for signing it in its present state, I cannot 
agree with some gentlemen who have declared their dissent to the insertion 
of certain words expressive of our "duty and loyalty" to the King, nor 
with those who according to the bare letter of this Association would per- 
suade us that we ought to hold indiscriminately every man who shall refuse 
to sign it inimical to the liberty of the colonies. I have not premeditated 
a speech for this occasion; I have thought much of the subject; my words 
will flow from the heart. I am not anxious to influence any man. I have 
concerted measures with no man. What I have to offer will afford no 
subject for debate ; I therefore hope for and humbly claim a patient hearing 
and a candid interpretation of my sentiments. (The view was general, 
"Hear the Chair, go on, go on"; but I clearly perceived by the discom- 
posure of a few countenances displeasure was raised in as many hearts.) 

The first part, gentlemen, on which I am desirous of explaining my own 
thoughts is the introduction of ourselves as ' ' Subscribers and inhabitants of 
this colony " in preference to a proposed amendment by adding these words, 
"His Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects." I attended to your 
debates, it was my duty to do so, without the interposition of my private 
opinions. I remarked that gentlemen from all parts of the house approved 
of the motion for inserting the proposed declaration of duty and loyalty 
to the King. These were at one time told that such a declaration in the 
body of a contract to bear arms against the King would be "absurd," 
"contradictory"; at other times they were quieted by assurances that 
"the profession of loyalty was implied and to be understood"; that "our 
Association was only for defense. " Upon the whole I was convinced that 
the proposed declaration was pleasing and acceptable to a great number, 
probably to a large majority of members; very few I beUeve would have 
appeared against it upon a question. I was among the former and have 
reserved myself to make the declaration expUcitly, immediately before I 
put my name to this paper. Gentlemen, I have taken and repeatedly taken 
the oath of allegiance to King George the Third. I now profess to be one 
of His Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, willing at aU. times to do 
my utmost in defense of his person, crown and dignity; I neither wish his 
death nor to remove him from the throne, the crown from his head or the 
sceptre from his hand. I pray for his life, that he may at a long distant 
day transmit the crown and sceptre to the only true and legal hereditary 
heir in the line of the royal house of Hanover. By covenanting in this 
paper " to go forth, to bear arms, and to repel force by force, " I mean to act 
in terms of my oath of allegiance. His Majesty has been misinformed, ill 
advised by some of our fellow subjects, who are His Majesty's enemies and 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 209 

the enemies of his faithful Americans. Against these I am willing, and 
shall be willing, to bear arms and to repel force by force in any command 
suitable to my rank, whenever such shall appear in hostile acts against my 
country. Against every invader of our rights and Uberties, I shall be ready 
to make all possible opposition. I shall do so with the greater cheerfulness 
from a strong hope of being instrumental in restoring to his Majesty his 
undoubted right of reigning over a vast empire of freemen (sic), of recover- 
ing to him the possession of the hearts of millions of his faithful subjects of 
which he has been robbed by the machinations of a few wicked men who 
falsely caU themselves his friends. These, gentlemen, are the genuine 
sentiments of my breast. I know the declaration will, however, avail me 
nothing if we fail of success in our attempts to defend our rights. The 
longest sword, if a wicked ministry are to be gratified, will measure and 
establish right. Declarations by the conquered will be treated as mere 
pretences of loyalty and heard with contempt; nevertheless I feel some 
satisfaction at present and may find consolation upon a future day, if I 
should be reduced to a necessity of making explanations from a higher 
eminence than the pedestal on which I now stand. 

The second part of this association on which I desire to explain myself 
before I subscribe, is the late subjoined declaration that ' ' we will hold all 
those persons inimical to the liberty of the colonies who shall refuse to subscribe. " 
This is a doctrine, gentlemen, which was also, as I well remember, very 
much disrelished by many of our members. To me, in its fullest extent and 
according to an opinion' just now delivered by a gentleman behind the 
chair, it is abhorrent and detestable. 

I should be a mean wretch if I subscribed to it through fear with mental 
reservations; I should be a dishonest man, a villain, if I did so before I 
had made this open declaration; that I hold it possible, I think it probable, 
I know it certain, that there are men who are not inimical (I wish we had 
expressed our meaning by an EngUsh word ; I believe this is not to be found 
in any of our vulgar dictionaries, and some of us in remote parts of the 
country may not be possessed of a Latin vocabulary) ; I say Gentlemen, 
there are certain men who are not enemies to their country, who are friends 
to aU America, who were born among us, some who have lived to a longer' 
a date than that by which the Royal Psalmist limits the life of man (they 
are upwards of three score years and ten) , whose whole lives have been spent 

' My neighbour D. Legare. — "I hope we shall hold every man an enemy 
who will not sign, hold him so forever and have no deaUngs. Some told 
me they would not subscribe to Boston; now we will tell them you shall 
subscribe to this. " This horrible tyrannical putt met great applause and 
provoked me to trouble the Congress and you with this hodge podge. — 
Laurens's note. 

' As good old Mr. Manigault, EUas Ball, and many others were in my 
view. — Lauren's note. 
14 



2IO Life of Henry Laurens 

in acts of benignity and public service, acts which prove beyond all con- 
troversy their love for their country; such men there are, who, when you 
present this paper to them, wiU tell you they are true friends to America. 
They acknowledge that we are greatly aggrieved and oppressed, they wish 
well to our cause, are willing to give up their fortunes as security for their 
good behavior and in testimony of their sincerity, but that they cannot, 
they dare not, for many reasons, subscribe to the Association. I do not 
recollect one, 'tis true, but there may be among us some Quakers or men of 
Quaker principles on the lawfulness of going to war and especially civil 
war, men who confide in the goodness of our cause and the overruling 
providence of God. Such men may refuse to subscribe this covenant and 
yet give you the most indubitable proofs of their friendship and good will 
towards the colonies. 

Other men there are who are not less friendly to America than we our- 
selves, but who think we have precipitated a measure which ought to have 
been delayed at least until we had received some advices from our Continen- 
tal Congress, from our own delegates, in whom we have lodged our whole 
power and solemnly engaged to be bound by their determinations. Of this 
class of refusers there may be some who are such staunch, such vigorous 
friends as wiU, without hesitation, declare they are willing to bleed and die 
in defence of the just rights of the colonies when the proper time arrives, but 
that we are premature, we are too hasty. Can I then, gentlemen, implicitly 
sign a paper, anathematize good men and declare those to be enemies whom 
I believe and know to be our friends? I cannot be such a fool; I dare not 
be such a villain. I hate aU dogmatic and arbitrary dictates over men's 
consciences. Here, gentlemen, is a book from which we have heard prayers, 
an orthodox book, in which I find a doctrine similar to that which I now 
object to in our intend-intended association : ' ' Which faith except every one 
do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." 
Long was this Athanasian test a stumbhng block in the cause of religion in 
general, a bar to the honour and prosperity of the church established by 
law. Upon that foundation deists erected their batteries, luke warm Chris- 
tians pleaded for their indifferences. How, said such men, can a religion 
which contains such unmerciful doctrines be true or acceptable to mankind? 
Honest minded men of nervous and fervorous zeal for the same religion 
abandoned and detested that church which maintained such intolerant 
damnating tenets as essential to salvation. 

When I was a boy, before there were any settled principles of religion in 
my mind, I have heard my father and my mother and many other good old 
people profess that creed with great warmth of devotion, I at the same time 
inwardly exclaiming, "This can't be true; I cannot beUeve it." I would 
not join the bigots to mother church. At length the day came when that 
church tacitly reprobated her favorite system which stands in her common 
prayer as the stated test of orthodox faith to be made on certain solemn 
days, of which this happens to be one. It is no more heard ; our churches 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 211 

are silent, and (here I was going on to draw a parallel between the reproba- 
tory clauses in our association and the creed of St. Athanasius, but Mr. 
Parson Tenant' very rudely interrupted me. "The Chair," said he, "is 
out of order " — "I think the chair is out of order. " I begged his pardon. 
"I had permission to speak and was, as I htunbly conceived, in very good 
order." He proceeded in attempting to confuse me. I exclaimed, "I 
will speak; I will be heard or I wiU be the first man who wiU refuse to sign 
your paper. I speak not merely as your President, I speak as a member, a 
free man. If I am not heard as a man I will not sign as your President. 
The utmost of your resentment wiU be to take my life. Take it and deprive 
me of a very few years. I will not hold a life upon dishonorable terms. I 
will not be forced to sign any paper contrary to the dictates of my con- 
science to save my life." The universal voice was "Goon Mr. President"; 
"Go on"; "Hear the chair"; "Hear the chair.") 

After a moment's pause I concluded: Gentlemen, I meant to say in a 
few words that I could not, I dared not, promise to hold any man an enemy 
to the colonies if I knew him to be a friend, merely because he would not, 
at first asking, subscribe this association which I hold in my hand. I have 
proved what we all know, that many cases may exist, if {sic; of?) refusal 
to sign this paper by men who are firm friends to our cause — But perhaps 
my abhorrence to intolerant doctrines may not be palatable to some gentle- 
men, nor my reasoning allowed to be applicable to our present case because 
I have referred only to my own feelings and to one instance of arbitrary 
rule over the consciences of men in tenets of religion. Permit me therefore, 
to produce one instance of noble toleration in the political walk, an example 
which greatly influences my mind and which I recommend as worthy our 
imitation. I remember to have read an anecdote in Dahymple's Memoirs 
and have been reading it this morning, of an ancestor of the late Lord 
Lyttelton, Sir Charles, who had been an ofl&cer of distinction under King 
James 2d and had also been active in the Revolution and bringing in the 
Prince of Orange. When that prince was seated on the throne and declared 
King of England, he offered Sir Charles a regiment in Flanders and to make 
him a Major General. Sir Charles declined the promotion. The King 
desired to know why he refused. He answered, "Because I am under 
great obligation to my old master. I hear he will be there. If he shotdd be 

' A Congregationalist minister active in Revolutionary politics. "Jan. 
II, 1777, he deUvered an address in the House of Assembly on the subject 
of religious liberty. This address has become historical." His influence 
was strong in the movement leading to disestablishing the Episcopal state 
church in 1778. He doubtless objected to Laurens's mixing poUtics with 
the creed of the estabUshment. He was among the most able and influen- 
tial leaders of the progressive party, but died in 1777. Laurens for both 
political and religious reasons has plentiful sneers at "parson Tennent. " 
— D. D. W. 



212 Life of Henry Laurens 

in the camp I dare not trust myself; I fear I shotdd go over to him. " The 
King replied, "You are a man of honour, Sir Charles; you act upon prin- 
ciple; don't disturb the government and we shall be very good friends. " 

This example of toleration, I say, is worthy of our imitation. I would not 
mean to prescribe for other gentlemen, but I declare the spirit of persecu- 
tion is hateful to me; it is impossible for me to cherish it. Men may agree 
in general and in the grand essential points, but no two men believe in all 
points exactly alike. Some men ' can swallow the doctrine of predestination 
without a gulp who hold that of transubstantiation ab[ ]^ and blas- 
phemous. I have been led, gentlemen, into these particulars by that 
declaration which I heard from behind the chair, "that we should, that 
we ought to, hold every man without exception who should refuse to sign 
the Association, an enemy" — "hold him an enemy and forbear all dealings 
or intercouse with him forever. " Gentlemen, 'tis impossible for me to sign 
upon such terms. I am, as I have repeatedly said, certain that some will 
refuse to sign who are friends to our cause. If I know a man to be our 
friend, how can I be so base as to stigmatize him by the harsh epithet of 
enemy? But understand me right; I mean no unfavorable salvo for 
particular purposes. No, I shall in all cases exercise my judgment and 
make an honest determination. I think I shall be able to distinguish 
between mere pretences of men who have never given any proofs of their 
friendship or attachment and those whose Hves have been devoted to the 
service of our country. I say I shall make the proper distinction and deter- 
mine accordingly. And now, under these necessary explanations of my 
duty and loyalty to my King and charity for my neighbors, I wiU cheerfully 
subscribe this association with my hand and upon proper occasion be ready 
to seal it with my blood. 

And then without a shaking hand I signed — 

Henry Laurens. 

This noble address, ringing in every line with courage, 
exhibits several things about Laurens very strongly. In the 
first place, the harmony between himself and the majority of 
his hearers shows how thoroughly representative he was of the 

' Mr. Tennent, I am told, holds the most absolute and rigid principles 
of the doctrine of predestination. He claims toleration; he is entitled to 
it; but alas! from my short acquaintance with him I have found him 
totally void of charity for other men. 

You will remember that if Dan Legare's abominable resolution to dis- 
grace and ruin two or three of my friends and friends of America, and one 
in particular to whom he pointed, had not been vomited forth in the most 
uncharitable, unchristian terms, I should have not spoken twenty words; 
so many wotdd have been sufficient for my purpose. — Laurens's note. 

' Break in the MS. Abhorrent? Abominable? Absurd? — D. D. W. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 213 

great body in his moderation and fair-mindedness. In his 
attitude upon the issue between Great Britain and South 
Carolina Laurens stood at this time on the same ground that 
Stephen Langton and Simon de Montfort had occupied, nor 
was he then prepared to go any further than they. The 
noblest sentiment of his speech is his detestation of all tyranny, 
under whatever guise or with whatever excuse parading, and his 
determination to respect and defend the rights of the minority. 

Though Laurens respected the honest opponent of the 
revolutionary movement generally execrated as a "Tory," 
there was one class for whom he had no respect and little 
sympathy: the trimmers who tried to stand with both sides 
so as to save their possessions. "Property men," he calls 
them. "Such men deserve no station of honor on either side. 
I have no pity for them, while I sincerely commiserate every 
sujffering, candid man, though my enemy. "^ If this spirit 
had governed all the partisans of the Revolution in South 
Carolina, the next seven years would have been spared some 
very sad history. 

Ten days later the Congress took a further step in systema- 
tizing the revolutionary organization by creating an executive 
of almost unlimited powers in the form of a Council of Safety 
of thirteen members. The Council chose Laurens as its 
President. The influence which he had wielded as President 
of the General Committee, the previous loose executive, and 
President of the revolutionary legislature was thus transformed 
into a more definite authority, and for the next eight months 
he was virtually the chief executive of the State, although it is 
not quite accurate to speak of him, as is sometimes done, as 
"President of South Carolina." 

The Congress, having ordered the raising of about two 
thousand troops, the issue of £1,000,000 paper money, and 
the election of a Second Provincial Congress in August, 
adjourned, June 226..^ 

' Laurens to John Laurens, Aug. 14, 1776, in S. C. Hist. Mag., x., 53. 

2 Drayton, i., 255 and 264. The Commons House of Assembly, July 
12, pledged the redemption of the £1,000,000 certificates. Drayton, 
ii., ID. 



214 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens's calm justice was manifested also in his attitude 
towards the prevailing panic of a slave insurrection. Jerry, 
a negro pilot, was hanged August i8, 1775, for saying he would 
pilot the British over the bar and conspiring to raise an insur- 
rection and burn the city. Although I do not know Laurens's 
attitude on the Jerry case, he considered the panic exaggerated 
and protested against even the whipping of a slave against 
whom there was no clear proof of guilt. ^ To him the tarring 
and feathering during the summer were revolting and seemed 
calculated to do the cause of liberty more harm than good. 
The Council of Safety was almost evenly divided between the 
conservatives and progressives, with neither of whom, says 
McCrady, the President seems to have taken any decided part, 
a verdict which seems to be countenanced by the fact that 
Drayton in naming the two factions omits Laurens alone from 
his classification. What we know from his own character and 
papers sustains the same view.^ 

The General Committee, which, as remarked above, still 
existed as a sort of residuary legatee of authority, deeming the 
Council of Safety inactive, demanded the fortification of the 
city and harbor. Laurens did not enter heartily into these 
plans. He defeated the first proposal to obstruct the harbor 
and again in September, 1775, strongly opposed the sinking 
of vessels to block the entrance. ^ The casting vote of the 
President was necessary in the Council of Safety, and though 
he condemned both the measure and the means for accomplish- 
ing it, he turned the decision to the affirmative, in the hope, 
says Drayton,'' that the pubHc ardor should not be cooled and 
that in the meantime something better might be devised. 
The scheme proved impracticable, as might have been fore- 
seen with one channel of a mile and another of half a mile in 
width. 

In October, 1775, Laurens's stiff defense of his policy of jus- 
tice to individuals involved him in a quarrel which threatened 

^Drayton, ii., 24 and note; Laurens to John Laurens, June 23, 1775. 
' McCrady, iii., 30; Drayton, i., 318. 

3 Laurens to John Laurens, Sept. 23, 1775; S. C. Hist. Mag., v., 73-8. 
* Memoirs, ii., 54-6. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 215 

his life. Young Mr. John Faucheraud Grimke, just returned 
from England, left at the residence of his father John Paul 
Grimk^ some letters with which he had been entrusted. 
Laurens's account of what happened is as follows: The elder 
Grimk6 asked Laurens if he would submit some of the letters 
to the Committee, as they were addressed to "suspected 
persons. " Laurens replied that he was of no committee which 
opened private letters; Grimk6 pressing the subject, Laurens 
assured him that he never concerned himself with such matters. 
Taking a package of newspapers addressed to printer Wells, 
who always lent him his papers, Laurens departed and deliv- 
ered the package unopened to its owner. 

Grimk^ senior delivered the suspected letters to printer 
Timothy, active in the radical party, who carried them to 
Arthur Middleton, an aggressive leader and a member of the 
"Secret Committee, " who upon his own responsibility opened 
them, afterward returning them through Timothy to Grimk6 
senior. 

Young Grimk^ now enters upon the scene. Laurens sur- 
mised that the letter openers, having discovered that they had 
gone too far, sought to protect themselves by claiming that 
their act had been done upon his authority, and incidentally 
to punish him for the condemnation which he had always 
placed upon this practice. He was President of the Council of 
Safety and had seen the letters. In the course of an angry 
controversy, begun without provocation by young Grimk6 
and carried on by personal interviews, notes, and newspaper 
articles, young Grimke charged that Laurens had advised the 
opening of the letters. This is the only material matter in 
which the men contradict. Young Grimke asserted that 
Timothy said that old Grimke told him that Laurens advised 
sending the letters to the Council of Safety. Not to go into 
other features of young Grimk6's course very unfavorable to 
his frankness, the question naturally arises, why did he not 
secure directly from his father a point-blank statement that 
Laurens advised sending the letters to the Council of Safety? 
The inference amounts to a moral certainty that he could not 
have got such a certificate from his father. Laurens "heard 



2i6 Life of Henry Laurens 

and overheard one of the party twice say that old Grimke 
ought to be indemnified and saved, as he had intended to 
serve the public. " 

To the charge supported by such roundabout testimony, in- 
stead of which the direct evidence would surely have been used 
if it had existed, Laurens opposed his positive denial of having 
advised the opening of the letters, supported by his entire 
past record in such matters. He concluded with some severe 
reflections upon the young man's character and an expression 
of readiness to meet him upon the field of honor. In the 
duel which followed, October 17th, Laurens, in obedience to 
his frequently declared principle, refused to fire. Grimk^'s 
pistol snapped. 

Whether young Grimke was egged on by a clique seeking, as 
Laurens said, "punishing a fellow who had refused to 'serve 
the people^ by tearing loose all the bands of society," each 
must judge for himself. There can be no doubt that an angry 
sense of guilt was a prominent factor. 

Laurens expressed his "abhorrence of duels" and spoke of 
the affair as "such folly, such madness"; yet this was his 
second or third affair.^ He records, "more than once that I 
had bravery enough to stand and be shot at, but was too great 
a coward to kill any man except by necessity." It is not 
surprising that his solemn admonition on this occasion to John 
Laurens proved unavailing. When that fiery young gentle- 
man was upbraided with the folly of his conduct in fighting 
Charles Lee for his reflections upon Washington, he could point 
to his father as a good preacher but a worse sinner than himself. 

Laurens's only defense for inviting Grimk^'s challenge was 

^ Laurens may have fought a duel in connection with the Middleton- 
Grant quarrel of 1761, but I do not think so. His allusion to "more than 
once" having had "bravery enough to stand and be shot at" may include, 
Mr. A. S. SaUey, Jr., suggests, the duel arranged but not fought with 
Egerton Leigh. On the same occasion Customs Officer Moore also sent 
him a challenge but failed to stay to fight. 

John Lewis Gervais was Laurens's second in the Grimke duel. The 
account is drawn from the abstract of the newspaper articles, etc., and 
Laurens's account to John Laurens in the 5. C. Hist. Mag., v., 125-30, 
unless otherwise stated. 



Revolutionary Movement, i^^S-11 217 

that he considered it necessary in order to crush a clique who, 
he thought, in the style of the tyranny of the crowd over men's 
consciences then so common, were seeking to hound him down. 

It is impossible [he wrote to his brother James], that young Grimk6 should 
have acted such a part as he has if he had not been set on by three or four 
people who hate me because I detest and discountenance the practice of 
opening private letters. ... I cannot think this fooUsh young man has 
cleared his reputation by snapping a pistol, well aimed and no doubt well 
loaded, at my breast.' 

Laurens's enlightened and honorable character shows to 
advantage in his opposition both to duelling and opening 
private letters when both were ordinary practices with the 
English ministers. One of the items of expense to that govern- 
ment in ordinary times of peace was the engraving of counter- 
feit seals to use on the pillaged correspondence of leaders of the 
opposition. George III. himself gave considerable time to the 
perusal of private letters rifled in the post office.^ 

The middle of September, 1775, was a turning point in the 
history of the Revolution in South CaroHna. A government had 
been organized and had undertaken many of the functions of 
sovereignty ; thousands of her citizens arrayed in arms against 
each other at Ninety-Six had barely avoided a bloody battle, 
and the provincial troops had seized Fort Johnson.^ The 
party of action having thus far succeeded, would, unless 
restrained, soon render reconciHation impossible. Laurens 
feared that the last irretrievable step would soon plunge the 
country into civil war, but reluctant as he was for such an 
outcome, he stood ready to take it if there was no other road 
to freedom. The following letter of October 20, 1775, to his 
brother James in England probably expresses the feelings of a 
majority of his fellow-citizens at that time: 

If it pleases God to permit them (his children) to participate in that 
estate, which a few months ago everybody called large, but which in our 

' Laurens had previously been a friend of the Grimk^s, and it is pleasant 
to record that twelve years after this he speaks of "my good friend John 
Paul Grimk6 " and does his daughter a kindness. — Letter of March 10, 1 787. 

'Trevelyan, i., 158-9. ^ Drayton, ii., 30. 



2i8 Life of Henry Laurens 

present circumstances is of very little value to them and which stands upon 
the very brink of annihilation with respect to them and me — ^for although I 
will not join in every mad scheme of my brethren here, yet I am resolved to 
hazard all that estate rather than submit to the tyranny of those brethren 
who are on your side of the water. , . . We might have acted with more wis- 
dom than we have discovered in South Carolina. I have been uniformly of 
one opinion from the hour in which I dared to plead against taking the reins 
of government into our hands; and every hour since has verified and con- 
firmed my declaration of what would naturally follow from that injurious 
determination. At length we have driven ourselves into a labyrinth ; rash 
men have devised means of affronting the King's government in many 
instances too grossly to be borne. Ignorant and timid men have been 
persuaded to join them to make up a majority, and they have gone too far 
to retreat. (Then follows a picture of the distress he has witnessed from 
hundreds of families leaving the town from fear of bombardment, etc.) . . . 

Much money has been spent in half repairs of our fortifications, which 
would be useless at best. (Then follows an account of the fortifications, 
ships, etc.) ... I desire the gentlemen around the table to take heed and not 
outrun the miUion — On the ist November the Provincial Congress will 
meet — the whole colony will be fully represented — possibly they may not 
approve of aU the measures of a majority of five in matters of the utmost 
importance, and perhaps they may think that burthening the whole people 
with immense taxes for vain attempts to secure Charleston may not be 
calculated for promoting the welfare of the colony, and the real interest of 
America. (Then follow expressions of dissatisfaction at the enforcement 
of the Association, particularly upon old? respected citizens.) ... I saw 
what would be the consequences of forcing men's consciences. . . . 

God deliver us from Kingly, ministerial and popular tyranny ! But the 
honest heart will go free amidst all these raging powers. 

The Second Provincial Congress met in its first session 
November 1-29, 1775. Christopher Gadsden being absent 
at the Continental Congress, the leadership of the Progressives 
fell to William Henry Drayton, and right nobly did this brave 
and gifted young patriot of thirty-three conduct his wavering 
countrymen. South CaroUna cannot too highly honor him 
as the one man to whom more than any other is due the credit 
of the State's affairs being managed with a spirit befitting the 
crisis through which she, with all America, was passing during 
the latter half of 1775. There was no one else upon the scene 
of action entertaining the progressive views which the situation 
demanded and willing to take the plunge who was possessed 
of the abilities, the varied talents, the address, the influence, 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 219 

which were necessary successfully to play the part filled by 
Drayton. It may indeed be questioned whether the patriarch 
of the Revolution in South CaroHna, Christopher Gadsden 
himself, could, on account of his disposition, have done so well. 
Drayton was courage, energy, tact, and ingenuity personified. 
Placed in the chair at the opening of the Second Provincial 
Congress by the moderates in order to silence his voice, he 
converted the colorless office of moderator of an uncertain and 
divided deliberative body into the generalship of an army on 
campaign and vastly strengthened his influence by the means 
which his opponents had employed to reduce him to a figure- 
head. Removed by the same party to the solemn and sup- 
posedly innocuous post of Chief Justice, he at once used his 
position of enhanced dignity to support by principles of law 
the ideas he had advocated as a politician, and in a charge 
which has rung round the world he proclaimed the independ- 
ence of America as the necessity of manifest destiny, 
before the motion for independence had even been intro- 
duced in Congress.^ 

Continued confidence in Laurens was manifested by the 
fact that during the Second Congress he was a member of 
almost every important committee, was generally chairman, 
and was elected President of the Second Council of Safety 
as he had been the First.' November 15, 1775, he was made 
one of a committee along with Drayton, Charles Pinckney, 
Thomas Heyward, and Moultrie sometimes known as the 
"dictatorship committee, " to whom the safety of the province 
was entrusted between sessions from day to day in apprehen- 
sion of an attack from the ships in the harbor. ^ 

It was during this session that the first battles of the Revolu- 
tion in South CaroUna occurred. On November nth there 
was a bloodless cannonade between the South Carolina ships 
seeking to obstruct Hog Island Channel and the royal vessels. 
November I9th-2ist a more serious conflict occurred between 
Major Williamson commanding almost six hundred Whigs 

^ This famous charge to the Grand Jury was delivered April 23, 1776. 
It is printed in Moore's American Eloguence, i., 50. 

' Dra3rton, ii., 61, 79; Chap. xiii. et passim. ^ McCrady, iii., 82. 



220 Life of Henry Laurens 

within a fort at Ninety-Six and Major Robinson commanding 
almost two thousand Tories, in which there were thirty- 
four killed and wounded.^ 

The Congress having adjourned, November 29th, the Second 
Council of Safety assumed control. This body was marked 
by a vigor which the First Council lacked. They sent Col. 
Richardson during November and December northwestward 
almost from end to end of the province with a force of eventu- 
ally over four thousand and so intimidated the Tories that 
they did not again stir until after the fall of Charleston in 
1780.* The General Committee ceased to meet after Decem- 
ber 27th. The British ships were expelled from the harbor 
and several slight fortifications were erected. ^ 

The Provincial Congress reconvened February i, 1776. 
Laurens would then have been elected a delegate to the Con- 
tinental Congress, but "it was very fortunate for me," he 
wrote, "that gentlemen were pleased to think they could not 
spare me from the Council of Safety ; a long absence from 
home would have hastened and completed the ruin of my 
plantation affairs, which even now suffer extremely."'* In 
the midst of the session, every day of which was hurrying the 
province into the State, he wrote to his intimate friend William 
Manning of London, that there was still a possibility of recon- 
ciliation, but that what would have been easy six months ago 
would be up-hill work now. His own efforts, much as he 
desired the restoration of the old relations, were to stir all 
Americans to such a sense of their wrongs that they would 
never lay down their arms without redress. If all that has 
been done, he continues, was known to the ignorant back- 
country people, they would "become as violent Liberty Boys 
as Hancock or Adams." Certain Tory prisoners whom he 
visited in jail desired to remain neutral; he told them that 
would be odious and laid before them the Declaratory 
Act. 

^ Drayton, ii., 72-3, 118-22. 

' McCrady, iii., 587-8. 

3 Drayton, ii., 161-6. 

* Laurens to John Laurens, Feb. 22, 1776. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 221 

"What!" said the spokesman; "'to bind us in all cases whatsoever?' 
Why, then how can we be free; we are as bad off as the negroes. " 

What a scene is here! [Laurens continues;] War and bloodshed — 
brothers' blood ! What blame do those deserve who first invited and those 
who by timely application might have prevented these calamities. ' 

Meanwhile, following the advice of the Continental Con- 
gress in reply to their request for guidance, the Provincial 
Congress took up the formation of a constitution to serve until 
the adjustment of the existing quarrel with Great Britain. 
On February loth, Col. Laurens reported from the committee 
on the Constitution, 

That in their opinion, the present mode of conducting public affairs is 
inadequate to the well governing of the good people of this Colony; that 
many regulations are wanting for securing peace and good order during the 
unhappy disputes between Great Britain and the Colonies; and that the 
Congress should immediately take under consideration what regulations 
are necessary for these good purposes.' 

It was in debating the report this same day that Gadsden, 
in harmony with Paine's Common Sense, the first copy 
of which to reach South Carolina he had just brought from 
Philadelphia, declared his sentiment for absolute independence. 
The suggestion was received with execrations, and if it had 
been pressed by the few who were of Gadsden's opinion would 
have broken up the Congress. Laurens bore his testimony 
against Paine's principles "and against those indecent expres- 
sions with which the pages abound"; and Rutledge declared 
that he would ride post night and day to Philadelphia to 
prevent a separation from the mother country. ^ 

Laurens was a member of the committee of eleven, embrac- 
ing men of every shade of opinion, elected next day to report 
the draft of a constitution. The moderates were represented 
by eight men, the extremists by three.'* The most influential 
member was Rutledge. The opposition to any constitution, 
with its temporary character howsoever strictly defined in its 

^Laurens to Manning, Feb. 27, 1776. * Drayton, ii., 172-3. 

3 Drayton ii., 173; Laurens to John Laurens, Feb. 28, 1776, in L. I. 
Hist. Soc. MSS. " McCrady, iii., iio; Drayton, ii., chap. iii. 



222 Life of Henry Laurens 

preamble, was overcome by the arrival of the news of the act 
of Parliament of the previous December 21st denouncing con- 
fiscation and seizure against the Americans as rebels. The 
morning of March 26th the Constitution was adopted to serve 
until the hoped-for reconciliation with the mother country, 
and the Provincial Congress adjourned to meet in the afternoon 
as the General Assembly. 

Two days later Laurens wrote to John approving the step 
that had been taken, as it will give better government than 
South Carolina has had in years — an allusion to the Wilkes 
fund deadlock and the long continued degeneration of the 
Council. Probably in no colony did the struggle for local 
rights merge more perfectly into the struggle for general 
American rights than in South Carolina ; and but for the real 
and substantial character of the former, the latter would have 
been deprived of much of the momentum which carried it to 
success. 

The transformed Provincial Congress of the morning meeting 
in the afternoon as the General Assembly proceeded to elect 
a Legislative Council, or upper house, of thirteen members, 
of whom Laurens was one. The two houses then elected 
a President and Vice-President, and, says McCrady,^ 

no better selection could have been made than John Rutledge, who was 
chosen President, and Henry Laurens Vice-President.^ Both these gen- 
tlemen were earnest in the maintenance of what they conceived to 
be their rights as English-bom freemen; but neither was prepared for 
separation from the mother country. They both represented the real 
sentiment of at least the most substantial people in the colony. They 
were English Whigs, seeking the redress of their grievances by constitutional 
means, and in maintaining which they were prepared to shed their blood 
if necessary, as many EngUshmen had done before, but neither was in 
favor of the New England idea of independence. 

From first to last none so truly represented the sentiments 
of their fellow-citizens or were so respected and trusted in the 

^iii., 115- 

2 Laurens remained Vice-President until June 27, 1777, when, being 
absent in the Continental Congress, James Parsons was chosen Vice-Presi- 
dent. — 5. C. and American General Gazette, July 3, 1777. 



Revolutionary Movement, i^^S~ll ^^3 

great and perplexing issues of the Revolution as these two. 
Drayton and Gadsden appeal more stirringly to our imagina- 
tion by their boldness and decision ; but we are forced to con- 
cede that neither of them so faithfully reflected the public 
mind of South Carolina or so fully shared its confidence. 

But Laurens was not so conservative as Rutledge. An 
interesting commentary is furnished by the latter's resignation 
of the Presidency in 1778 rather than accede to the new Con- 
stitution superseding the temporary one of 1776, and the 
former's condemnation of his course. In explaining to Laurens 
his reasons, Rutledge pursued very much the same line of 
argument as in his speech before the Legislature, except that 
he omitted any reference to his opposition to closing the door to 
reconciliation with England. He urged very ably the prin- 
ciple later applied by the Supreme Court of the State to the 
same question, that the Legislature is unable to abrogate the 
Constitution, though the Court was more logical and declared 
that neither could it impose one, even under the extraordinary 
circumstances of 1776; but his statement "that such power is 
only in the people, on a dissolution of the government or sub- 
version of the Constitution, " shows that he had not thought 
out any definite plan for constitutional changes, like the con- 
vention idea which later developed. He was still too much 
under the shadow of England's slowly evolved, unwritten 
custom for that. Though Laurens's view of the resignation 
would be influenced by his friendship for Rutledge, still it is 
significant that he condemned it, and he had been convinced 
that England's own acts had rendered independence "neces- 
sary and unavoidable. "* 

In the form and terms of the temporary Constitution the 
conservatives had gained a decided victory, and only the 
progress of actual war could throw control again into the hands 
of the party of Gadsden and Drayton. Three months later 
the battle of Fort Moultrie swept public opinion into support 

'Rutledge to Laurens, March 8, 1778; Laurens to Rutledge, May 4, 
1778. I am indebted to Prof. W. W. Carson, of the University of Wiscon- 
sin for the copy of Rutledge's letter from the original MS. in the Wisconsin 
Hist. Soc. Library. 



224 Life of Henry Laurens 

of independence. That Vice-President Laurens was not idle 
at the time of the attempted British invasion is testified by the 
following account of his activities at that time : 

I thought it my duty to add to the dignity of V. President of the colony 
(now State) the several offices of engineer, superintendent of works, etc. 
I, who you know had resolved never again to mount a horse, I who thought 
it impossible for me to gallop five miles in a day, was seen for a month and 
more on the back of a lively nag at half past 4 in the morning, sometimes 
galloping twenty miles before breakfast, and often sitting the horse 14 
hours in 18.' 

In the heat of battle and flow of blood South Carolina was 
welded to the cause of independence and prepared to receive 
with joy a few weeks later the news of the Declaration. 
Laurens thought at the time that Congress had been too hasty 
in shutting the door to reconciliation ; but he was then ignor- 
ant of the act of Parliament putting the Americans out of the 
King's protection, and if he had been in Congress and known 
of that, he would have signed the Declaration of Independence 
as an already accomplished fact, the publication of which this 
act of Great Britain's had rendered "necessary and unavoid- 
able." Yet it wrung his heart, however "necessary and 
unavoidable," to be driven from the empire in which he had 
been born and nourished, which held so many of his cherished 
friends and which he had so long loved with an ardent 
patriotism. 

While in the Tower of London, he wrote to a friend who had 
informed him that he was criticized because as President of 
Congress he had been a zealous promoter of the Declaration of 
Independence, that he was not even in Congress at the time, 
that he was in deep mourning when the news reached Charles- 
ton, and that some took grave offense at his appearing in that 
garb at the proclamation of the Declaration. "In truth, I 
wept that day as I had done for the melancholy catastrophe 
which caused me to put on black clothes — the death of a son, 
and felt much more pain. " ^ In a letter of February, 1776, he 

' Laurens to John Laurens, Aug. 14, 1776, in S. C. Hist. Mag., x., 50. 
* His youngest son James had recently died in London from a fall. 



Revolutionary Movement, 1775-77 225 

says : "One more year will enable us to be independent. Ah ! 
that word cuts me deep — has caused tears to trickle down my 
cheeks" ; and he compares himself to a dutiful son "thrust by 
the hand of violence out of his father's house" and grieves 
that his children must be called by some new name. But, he 
says, standing as the representative of posterity, he dared 
not betray the trust. Once convinced that independence was 
necessary for America's best interests, he never wavered in 
his fidelity to the cause. 

At the time of his election, Laurens protested against being 
made Vice-President, even declared he would not serve, and 
left the house. His private affairs had already suffered by his 
long absence in England, followed by his steady public employ- 
ment as head of the executive since June, 1775. The period 
following the suppression of the back-country Tories, the 
adoption of the Constitution, and the repulse of the British, 
was followed by a long period of comparative tranquillity. 
Relieved except for occasional interruptions from the burden 
of public duties, he was left free to attend to his private affairs 
and does not again appear prominently in politics until his 
election to the Continental Congress in 1777. 



CHAPTER XVII 

FIRST MONTHS IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, 1 777 

THE relief from the constant pressure of public duties afforded 
Laurens by the Council of Safety's being superseded 
by the government under the Constitution was brief. Janu ary 
10, 1777, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress 
despite his protest that his private affairs would not allow his 
absence; but his State refused to surrender his services. "I 
call it therefore a command — I go."* The decision was final. 
In full realization of what it involved, putting every consider- 
ation after his duty to his country, Laurens now entered 
upon a period of seven years' service during which at heavy 
cost in family interest, property, and health he illustrated the 
virtue of that public spirit the lack of which his experience in 
Congress taught him to regard as the most dangerous hin- 
drance to the success of the Revolution. His sons remained at 
school in England, where his two daughters had been sent with 
his ill brother, Mr. James Laurens, in the summer of 1775. 
The associations becoming unpleasant after the French treaty, 
the daughters with their uncle and aunt went early in April, 
1778, ^ to Nismes and remained in southern France at the near- 
by town of Vigan until the conclusion of the war. John soon 
joined his countrymen in their struggle for independence, and 
only the youthful Henry remained in the enemy's country. 

' Laurens to John Laurens, Feb. 3, 1777. The members elected on Jan. 
10 are named in the following order: Arthur Middleton, Thomas HeyTvard, 
Jr. (who were already members), and Henry Laurens. On the 21st Charles 
Pinckney and Patd Trapier, Jr., were also elected, but neither ever attended 
Congress. Jours, of Cong., vii., 129-30. During Laurens's long absence 
now beginning, his friend John Lewis Gervais looked after his interests. 

' Manning to Laurens, April 11, 1778. 

226 



The Continental Congress, 1777 227 

Passing through Camden, S. C, and Salisbury, N. C, 
Laurens reached Philadelphia July 21st and the next morning 
joined his colleagues upon the floor of Congress.^ Middleton 
and Heyward were at the time of their reelection in their places 
and were for some months the only representatives from their 
State. No explanation of Laurens's delay in repairing to his 
post suggests itself except necessary attention to his long- 
neglected affairs before leaving them under still more threaten- 
ing circumstances for a still longer period. He was entering 
upon one of the most useful and creditable phases of his public 
life. His long experience as a large merchant, his successful 
administration of a number of extensive plantations, his train- 
ing as a leading member of the Commons House of Assembly, 
and his year as the executive head of the revolutionary govern- 
ment of South Carolina had afforded opportunities for the 
development of his abilities of counsel and administration. 
The liberality of his character was manifested on the wider 
field upon which he now moved as in the narroi /er ones through 
which we have already followed him. The most notable fact 
in his career in Congress is that he habitually took broad, 
national views. He was unsparing in his condemnation of the 
spirit of party and sectionalism, and I am not aware of any 
vote in which he stooped from the high position of an American 
statesman to the narrow, selfish views of a partisan of a section, 
and in connection with only one subject can he be accused of 
overlooking justice in the zeal of faction.^ 

When Laurens took his seat Congress had already begun 
to suffer that loss of its most able members which was finally 
to impair so seriously its character and efficiency. John Rut- 
ledge, feeling that he could serve the common cause to more 
effect in South Carolina than Philadelphia, had retired to 
become the mainstay of his commonwealth during the trying 
years which followed, and others had answered similar calls. 
The necessity of sending some of the ablest men to foreign 

' Laurens to Gervais, July 25, 1777, and to Mcintosh, Aug. il, 1777, and 
letters en route; 5. C. Hist. Soc. Collections, i., 69; Jours. Cong., viii., 
570. Clearly he arrived the 2 1st, though one letter says the 20th. 

2 See Chapter XXI,, describing his conduct toward Silas Deane. 



228 Life of Henry Laurens 

courts withdrew a smaller number, but they were such men as 
to make their loss irreparable. Franklin and John Adams 
counted for more than most complete delegations. Far-sighted 
statesmen saw that this heavy drain of the ablest and most 
upright portion of the common council threatened the very 
existence of the union. Moreover the situation of the Congress 
at the best was precarious and difficult. Suddenly placed 
under the necessity of conducting a war, it was unsupplied 
with every power, authority, and resource for its task and could 
rely only on a steady sense of public duty in its constituents 
— a devotion which it was useless to expect. The war was 
conducted without any formal constitution, adequate author- 
ity, or orderly government, and in the face of an apathetic or 
hostile party embracing probably a majority of the population. 
Yet under difficulties almost beyond the belief of a generation 
accustomed to well-ordered institutions enjoying an authority 
beyond derogation and supported by an ardent patriotism 
practically universal, the old Congress in one way and another 
kept the government going and, with the aid of their great 
General and a handful of devoted patriots up and down the 
country, brought it to a successful termination and meanwhile 
performed a service for which they have received scant recogni- 
tion in laying the permanent foundations of national adminis- 
tration which endure to this day.^ A Congressman had a 
difficult and thankless task, and those who performed it with 
ability and disinterested patriotism deserve a credit which they 
have not usually received. The earlier runners in a relay race 
have been forgotten in the shouts of acclamation for those of 
the later course who arrived bearing the torch of a completed 
constitutional system. The final runner could not take even his 
first step until the previous bearer of progress had arrived, and 
doubtless the first mile was as dusty and toilsome as the last.^ 

' Friedenwald : "The Development of the Executive Departments," in 
Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States, 1775-8Q; edited 
by J. P. Jamison. 

* For a juster estimate of the old Congress than is usually found see 
Report of American Hist. Asso. for 1894, 236, quoting McMaster; also 
Trevelyan, iii., 19-29, and Friedenwald as cited above. 



The Continental Congress, 1777 229 

Three days after taking his seat Laurens was elected as 
chairman of a committee on the condition of Georgia^ and 
during the three months elapsing before his election as presi- 
dent he served upon fourteen different committees. The 
practice of Congress was to elect its committees without nomin- 
ations, and on eight of the fourteen Laurens's name appears 
at the head.^ Evidently Congress found out right quickly 
that the new member from South Carolina was, as Daniel 
Roberdeau of Pennsylvania put it, "a worthy, sensible, inde- 
fatigable gentleman." After a month's acquaintance John 
Adams wrote : 

I feel a strong affection for South Carolina for several reasons, i. I 
think them as stanch patriots as any in America. 2. I think them as 
brave. 3. They are the only people in America, who have maintained a s^ 

post and defended a fort. 4. They have sent us a new delegate whom I v- 

greatly admire, Mr. Laurens, their Lieutenant Governor, a gentleman of 
great fortune, great abilities, modesty and integrity, and great experience 
too. If all the States would send us such men, it would be a pleasure to be 
here. 3 

We find Laurens associated on committees four times with 
James Wilson of Pennsylvania, five times with John Adams 
and twice with Samuel Adams. Probably the strong friend- 
ship and esteem which was during the following years exhibited 
between him and the Adamses originated in the intimate 
relations and heavy drudgery of the committee room. But 
independent of this. Congress was a small body in which each 
member would much better learn his associates in the quiet 
counsels of the small room in Independence Hall than in the 
difficult enterprise, as Mr. Bryce expresses it, of trying to talk 
calm sense at the top of one's voice in such a vast auditorium 
as the Representatives' chamber in Washington. 

' Journals, viii., 579. 

' Whether the member elected at the head of the ticket was thereby 
the chairman or whether the committee chose its chairman I do not know. 
I find the statement (Jours., ix., 1055), "Henry Laurens, President of the 
Marine Committee." In the list of this committee, for 1777, Jours., ix., 
1079, the editor has omitted all the names added on October 14, 1777. 

3 John Adams to Mrs. Adams, Aug. 19, 1777, in Familiar Letters, 292. 



230 Life of Henry Laurens 

A member of the old Congress had indeed to be "indefati- 
gable " if he discharged the duties falling to his lot. There were 
the regular legislative routine and many things outside ordi- 
nary legislation. For instance, by resolution of September 1 1 , 
1777, the Committee on Commerce was ordered to import 
20,000 Bibles. There were the constant stress of providing 
for the armies, a large part — doubtless too large a part — in 
directing the movement of troops, the framing of a permanent 
constitution, the importunities of foreign adventurers, hun- 
dreds of petitions from aggrieved individuals, hundreds of 
requests proper to be sent to a court of claims, and in addition 
to all these, the foreign relations of the country. 

We may notice briefly the rules under which the old Congress 
worked before the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. 
The custom of electing committees without nominations has 
been noticed. Each State counted one voice, and each State 
laid down the rule as to how many of its representatives must 
be present in order to cast her vote. Questions were decided 
by a majority of the States voting, tied States being disre- 
garded.^ It is fortunate that the adoption of the Articles of 

' Take, e.g., a vote on November 26, 1777, of which the Journal records, 
"So it was resolved in the affirmative, " five States voting ay, four no, and 
two tied. There is much misapprehension as to the rule of voting in the 
Continental Congress before the Articles of Confederation went into effect. 
So eminent an author as Dr. Wharton, in his Diplomatic Correspondence, 
i., 275, states that "by a resolution of Congress of October 14, 1777, two 
members were necessary to entitle a State to vote." The resolution to 
which he refers will be found on examination to be a vote on adopting a 
clause in the Articles regarding the requirements for voting. Congress 
had no right to prescribe to a State how it should choose to confide its 
power, as each State had a practically unlimited right to settle that ques- 
tion for itself until after the Articles were adopted by the consent of the 
States. Occasionally a State did forbid its vote to be cast by less than 
two of its representatives. New York, e. g., did as a matter of fact impose 
such a requirement, May 13, 1777, so that the incapacity of one repre- 
sentative from that State to cast its vote, of which Wharton is speaking, 
is true, though, not on account of Congressional action. South Carolina 
specifically authorized one delegate to cast her vote, and the examination 
of the Journals shows that instructions of this kind were studiously obeyed. 
E. g., Journals, vii., 130; viii., 396; x., 27 and 104. Massachusetts required 



The Continental Congress, 1777 231 

Confederation, with their requirement of nine votes to carry- 
any matter of importance, did not come until the Revolution 
was almost won ; for, as has been truly said, the war could not 
have been conducted under their regulations. 

The approach of the British army made it necessary for 
Congress to leave Philadelphia. On September 14, 1777, it 
was resolved that if flight should become unavoidable, they 
would meet in Lancaster, a town about sixty miles to the west. 
A dispatch from Col. Alexander Hamilton arriving after 
adjournment on the i8th that the British were about to cross 
the Schuylkill, the members were notified, and each evacuated 
as best he could. The alarmed but cautious statesmen fled 
by a ludicrously circuitous route up the river and then south- 
west, going almost three-fourths around a circle in their 
maneuvers. Thomas Burke of North Carolina relates that 
he was awaked by a servant at two a.m. "The movement 
was not made by vote," he says, "but by universal consent, 
for each member consulted his own particular safety."^ 

Mr. Laurens acted with more composure. 

Your favour of the 28th [he wrote from York], reached me the very 
morning of the people's flight from Philadelphia — I fled not — shaving 
foreseen from amazing remissness where there ought to have been the ut- 
most attention & vigilance I had sent forward my baggage followed it that 
evening & next morning after many thousands had passed by me I made my 
breakfast filled my pipe and soberly entered my carriage drove gently on 
to Bristol took in the wounded Marquis de Lafayette & proceeded to 
Bethlehem, thence to Reading & Lancaster. Here Congress were soon 
convened, but hearts were sttU fluttering in some bosoms and a motion 
made for adjourning to this town.' 

It was Saturday the 27th when the first session at Lancaster 
occurred. The same day Congress decided to put a bold river 

at least three of her representatives to cast her vote. The Journals, after 
the supposed resolution of October 14, 1777, show that very frequently 
the votes of States were cast by single members, in some instances only one 
or two States having more than that number present. 

' Journals, viii., 754, and note 2. 

'Laurens to Gen. Howe, Oct. 20, 1777. Cf. Washington's Works, v., 
456, on Lafayette. 



232 Life of Henry Laurens 

between themselves and the enemy and adjourned to meet on 
the 30th at Yorktown across the Susquehanna. This small 
place was inconvenient for the public business and very un- 
comfortable for the members, but necessity kept them there 
until after the British evacuated Philadelphia in the middle of 
the next year, when they returned to their ancient capital, 
meeting there July 2, 1778, for the first time in nine and a half 
months. 

The Articles of Confederation were given their final form 
during the first few weeks at Yorktown. The most important 
point on which Laurens's position is recorded was the effort 
made by the nationalists to have representation assigned to 
the various States in proportion to population, and failing 
that, according to taxes paid. October 7th, an amendment 
was offered, there is no doubt by Virginia, to give each State 

one vote for every 50,000 white inhabitants, . . . that an equality in this 
national assembly may be preserved as nearly as possible, and that those 
who are bound by measures and are to pay taxes demanded by an assem- 
bly, the members of which are elected not by all the people, but by those 
of a particular district, may have the same proportional number of votes 
as they would have if they were personally present. 

A State a "district " containing part of "all the people, " who 
could not be "personally present!" And every State to be 
penalized in proportion as it had imported a slave population ! 
What progressives those Virginians were! This received the 
solid vote of Virginia, the one representative from Pennsyl- 
vania, and Mr. Penn of North Carolina. The small States 
opposed any effort to reduce them from a position of equality 
of power, and South Carolina and Georgia felt any measure to 
be against justice and their particular interests which put 
such a discouraging disadvantage upon slavery. There was 
no misunderstanding ; for those phrases, not necessary or cus- 
tomary in legal enactments, were plainly introduced as declar- 
atory of principles for propaganda. The Old Dominion had 
reached in those days a very high exaltation in which there 
were few to follow. 

Defeated thus on their measure and declaration, the nation- 



The Continental Congress, 1777 233 

alists returned to the attack, laying aside their declaration and 
seeking to conciliate the friends of slavery. This time they 
briefly proposed to allow each State "one delegate to Congress 
for every 30,000 of its inhabitants, and in determining ques- 
tions in Congress each delegate shall have one voice." The 
one Pennsylvania delegate declined to accept this; the solid 
vote of Virginia alone was recorded ay, and Mr. Penn of North 
Carolina again voted for proportional representation, like a 
true representative of the fine democracy he sprung from; 
but besides these only John Adams gave a nationalist vote. 

The defeated party made one last effort to express the na- 
tional unity of the country in some sort of plan which would 
gauge the power of each portion of the inhabitants by its rel- 
ative importance, and offered that representation should be in 
proportion to taxes paid for the support of the union. The 
solid vote of Virginia was supported only by the votes of John 
Adams and the wealthy, conservative, and elderly Mr. Arthur 
Middleton of South Carolina. So the original plan of one 
vote for each State was adopted, with no gentleman in the 
negative except the four Virginians, Penn, and Middleton. '^ 

In this great debate between the nationalists and particu- 
larists Laurens stood steadily with the latter, declining to 
allow the control either to wealth or population. His vote, 
October 23d, on the treaty-making power, ismore in accord with 
modern ideas, and the fact that he was in the minority only 
shows that his insight was clearer than that of his fellow- 
members. An amendment was proposed that Congress should 
not make any treaty preventing the individual States "from 
imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners as their own 
people are subject to." Laurens was the only Southern 
member to vote against this measure to shackle Congress so 
seriously in the conduct of foreign relations. Only Rhode 
Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut voted against it, and 
so the restrictive amendment became a part of the Articles.^ 
This vote of Laurens's is in harmony with his tendency to 
magnify the authority and dignity of Congress; but his posi- 
tion on this particular question was probably due more to his 

' Journals, ix., 779-82. » Journals, ix., 834-6. 



234 Life of Henry Laurens 

experience as a man of business than to any general theoretical 
considerations. It indicates, however, his freedom from 
sectional bias. 

Why Laurens and two other Congressmen voted in favor of 
the simple statement that Congress should have authority to 
decide disputes between States and against the details for 
its exercise was doubtless because of objection to the elaborate 
machinery to be employed.^ 

His last vote recorded on the Articles (October 30th) was 
against an amendment which proposed that the nine votes 
necessary to determine matters of importance in Congress 
must be from States containing a majority of the white 
population of the Union. This appears to have been the last 
desperate effort of the Virginians for rule by the popular 
majority of a consolidated nation, for it was supported by their 
solid vote, but besides only by Smith of Maryland and Samuel 
Adams. 

Towards the end of October, 1777, Hancock resigned the 
Presidency, which he had held for two years and five months. 
A motion of thanks customary on such occasions was offered ; 
but as Hancock had incurred the dislike of most of the New 
England delegations, an effort was made to deny him this 
formal compliment by having a motion put that "it is improper 
to thank any President for the discharge of the duties of that 
office." New England, except Connecticut, voted solidly in 
the affirmative, as did three members from other States, among 
whom was Laurens. The motion failed by a tie. The original 
motion was then put and Mr. Hancock received his thanks, 
only Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and 
Pennsylvania voting no. Laurens's position, unlike that of 
the New Englanders, was without personal bias, as is shown 
by his refusal to humiliate Hancock personally after the general 
motion against thanks had failed, which can be stated of no 
other member who voted for the general proposition of no 
thanks.^ 

' Journals, ix., 841-3. 

' Journals, ix., 853-4. Fiske's American Revolution, ii., 35, is inaccurate 
in stating that the motion to thank Hancock was defeated. He was 



The Continental Congress, 1777 235 

Francis Lightfoot Lee, of the powerful Adams-Lee combina- 
tion, was prominently spoken of for weeks beforehand as 
Hancock's successor. On November i, 1777, however, the 
position was conferred upon Laurens by a unanimous vote — 
an honorable tribute to the character he had established by his 
three months' service.^ His promotion increased his labors. 
The correspondence incident to the Presidency was itself a 



thanked by a vote of six States to four, which would have been seven to 
four if Maryland's one delegate present could, under the law of his State 
governing the powers of her delegates, have cast the vote of his State. 

I John Harvie to Thos. Jefferson, Oct. 17, 1777, in transcripts in Carnegie 
Institution for "Letters from Members of the Continental Congress.'" 
At a later date there was an understanding that no State should have a 
second President until each State had held the honor. Whether this idea 
had taken shape so early as to militate against Lee I cannot say. 

The following list of the Presidents of the Continental Congress was 
compiled from the Journals: 

Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, September 5, 1774-May 24, 1775. 

John Hancock, of Massachusetts, May 24, 1775-October 29, 1777. 

Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, November i, 1777-December 9, 1778. 

John Jay, of New York, December 10, 1778-September 28, 1779. 

Samuel Huntingdon, of Connecticut, September 28, 1779- July 6, 1781. 

Samuel Johnson was elected July 9, 1781, but declined. 

Thomas McKean, of Pennsylvania, July 10, 1781-October 23, 1781. 
Resigned on account of duties as judge in Pennsylvania. He is said to 
have been the only man who was a member of Congress continuously 
throughout the Revolution from 1774 to 1783. 

William Govett, elected October 23, 1781, but never served. 

John Hanson, of Maryland, November 5, 1 78 1 -November 4, 1782. 

Elias Boudinot, of New Jersey, November 4, 1 782-November 3, 1783. 

Thomas Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, Novembers, 1783-November 30, 1784. 
This is the first break in the custom which had become established of giving 
each State the Presidency before bestowing it a second time upon the same 
State. 

R. H. Lee, of Virginia, November 30, 1 784-November 23, 1785. 

John Hancock, of Massachusetts, November 23, 1785- June 5, 1786. 
Resigned on account of illness. 

Nathaniel Gorham, of Massachusetts, June 6, 1 786-February 2, 1787. 

Arthur St. Clair, of Pennsylvania, February 2, 1787-January 22, 1788. 

Cyrus Griffin, of Virginia, January 22, 1788, to the end, October 21, 1788, 
when it is recorded that "two States attended, " Massachusetts and South 
Carolina, and individual delegates from several other States. 



236 Life of Henry Laurens 

heavy burden. He was the channel of communication be- 
tween Congress and the Commander-in-Chief and conducted 
much of the diplomatic correspondence. The responsibility 
of voting for his State was still the same as with a private 
member; but the chair had no casting vote in ties, and com- 
mittees were elected by the house. His duties were often 
unpleasant, necessitating the refusal of favors to men who 
could see no good reason for being denied. He writes De 
Kalb, for instance, February 11, 1778, to hint to a young 
French friend "that hurry and urgencj'-, which may be ex- 
tremely necessary in a quick march, are exceedingly disgust- 
ing to a deliberative body of Representatives, particularly so 
when the application is for grace and favor. " It was during 
these months that the strong friendship between Laurens and 
Lafayette developed. He and the young Frenchman arrived 
in Philadelphia from Charleston near the same time in July, 
1777. When Lafayette was wounded in the following Sep- 
tember, Laurens took him in his own carriage to the officers' 
hospital in Bethlehem, a kindness which was afterwards 
fittingly remembered by the Marchioness in seeking to serve 
Laurens in the Tower of London. But however pleasant the 
friendship in other respects, it was instrumental in burdening 
him with recommendations for the Marquis's fellow-country- 
men, and he found it necessary to explain very firmly that 
justice to American officers made it impossible to grant com- 
missions and promotions to certain French gentlemen. ^ 

'The following incident connected with Baron Steuben, though occurring 
after Laurens's resignation of the Presidency, is instructive. It is from 
Laurens's letter to John Laurens, Philadelphia, April 18, 1779, and is found 
in the S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 140-3: 

"Our friend Baron Stuben had intimated expectations of pretty large 
pecuniary compensation for his expenses coming to and in America over and 
above the pay of Major General, and also for his own expenses and those 
of Mr. Fleury, Mr. L'enfant and Mr. Duponceau. A report was thereupon 
introduced from the Board of War. The whole seemed to me to be incon- 
gruous with his propositions at his arrival in York Town. I was therefore 
induced to call for certain documents and papers relative to the subject in 
order to enlighten such of our members as would otherwise have been ignor- 



The Continental Congress, 1777 237 

President Laurens's office and lodging at Yorktown were not 
near so large, he says, as the hall at his Mt. Tacitus plantation 
house, and more than once he was compelled to dine on bread 

ant, but I made no opposition to the report. Some busy body must have 
taken an advantage of my conduct and misrepresented me to the Baron, 
otherwise the following dialogue three days ago when he dined with me 
could never have happened. 

" ' What is the reason, Mr. Laurens, that Congress will not allow me my 
expenses? I told them I was not rich and I am sure the committee at 
York Town promised me. ' 

"'Why, Baron, I cannot answer for the conduct of Congress. For my 
own part I would recommend to you not to press that subject at the present 
moment. Every member of Congress is sensible of your merit and deserving. 
I cannot just now so fuUy assign reasons, as I may at a future time; but 
if I were to advise you, you would delay your demands until our affairs 
shall be a little better arranged.' 

" ^W His declarations to me at York Town were that he would 
expect nothing till the end of the war, his running expenses excepted. 
Congress gave him two or four horses and a commission of Major 
General, paid aU his expenses at and travelling from Boston, at York 
Town, &c. 

"' WeU, ' replied the Baron, 'for myself I will take your advice; I will 
ask nothing yet; I wiU go to the army and proceed in my duty; but why 
will they not do something for Fleury and the other young gentlemen who 
have assisted me in my work? ' 

" ' Congress, Sir, wiU undoubtedly do everything that is just and reason- 
able. There's no man who has a greater esteem and affection for Colo. 
Fleury than I have; but let us consider a little. Baron. Is not Mr. Fleury 
now within one grade of generalship? How long must he have served in 
his own country before he would have arrived at this eminence, with large 
and honorable testimonials in his pocket? ' 

" 'But, my dear Mr. Laurens, Mr. President, he cannot live by his ap- 
pointment, and he must go home if you do not do something for him. ' 

" ' You very well know. Baron, the state of our army and the state of our 
finances. If the case be so, that Colo. Fleury cannot stay with us unless 
Congress will do something more for hirn, and that Congress cannot do 
anything more for him, the consequence wiU be that he must go home, I 
shall be very sorry for it. ' 

"The Baron, in no small shew of choler and rage, although in presence of 
four or five other guests, answered, 'Then I shall go home; I will not 
stay. ' 

"' O Baron, Baron, you had just determined the contrary. Excuse me 
for saying, this is reaUy taking advantage of my candor. You will make 
me more cautious hereafter if you persist in these sentiments. What else 



238 Life of Henry Laurens 

and cheese and a glass of grog,^ — ^not entirely inappropriate 
when the soldiers at Valley Forge a few miles away were faring 
so much worse. In the first part of December he was visited 
with a severe attack of gout — the first in several years — which 
confined him to his room for a month and left him lame for 
nearly three months more. At the crisis of the Saratoga 
convention affair he was carried bodily into Congress. Never- 
theless his labors continued incessant. He writes, January 
26, 1778, that he is in Congress or at his writing table "sitting 
eighteen or nineteen, sometimes twenty hours in twenty-four. 
This encourages horrible swellings which are not quite dis- 
persed with the short respite in bed." He took cold water 
treatment and got some benefit. 

I am now sitting [he wrote, December 30, 1777I, both feet and legs bound 

could I have said, speaking as an honest man, if Colo. Fleury cannot con- 
tinue with us upon his present appointments and Congress wiU not, because 
they cannot with propriety, enlarge them, and he himself points out the 
alternative — what else could I have said? But I hope. Baron, you wiU not 
make me answerable for all the determinations of Congress. When I am 
there I am an individual and speak my sentiments or give my voice with- 
out fear, prejudice or partiality. I pray you. Baron, think better of this 
matter. ' 

" We went to dinner; the Baron looked grave; I made attempts to raise 
him; he retired earlier than usual, and, if I do not mistake, with a con- 
sciousness of a little transgression. " 

Laurens goes on to relate that when Steuben arrived in America he 
brought Deane's introduction as Lieutenant General in the Prussian army, 
and that, though he did not himself say he possessed this title, he did not 
disclaim it. "Sometime after he went to camp at Valley Forge I was well 
informed that he had never advanced near the rank of Lieutenant General, " 
says Laurens, "... and this moment it strikes me that the Baron might 
have misconstrued and misapplied my question, 'How long must Colo. 
Fleury have served? &c; ' but upon my honor, I had no design to touch him 
nor, as I have said above, did I ever think of the subject in this light until 
the present instant. However, if he has committed himself it is not my 
fault. If he felt anything like an attack, it was from within his own breast. 
Neither duty nor inclination could possibly have misled me to upbraid a 
man with whom I wished to have continued in friendship. But the times 
are distempered and the Devils of avarice and ambition are indefatigably 
improving them to their own advantage." 

I Laurens to John Burnett, July 24, 1778. 



The Continental Congress, 1777 239 

up in a blanket, in the room where Congress meets. . . . Perhaps two, it may 
be three hours, after dark I may be permitted to hobble on my crutches over 
ice and frozen snow or to be carried to such a homely home as I have, where 
I must sit in bed one or two or three hours longer at the writing table, pass 
the remainder of a tedious night in pain and some anxiety. I hear you 
reply, "Why fait(h) ! if I was you I would resign the Presidency. " Believe 
me, my dear sir, that was my solid determination on the second or third 
day after my present troublesome companion had taken possession of me; 
but Congress would not allow it. 

He adds humorously that he had as well be President as 
anyone else, since a good seat near a warm fire is some com- 
pensation for extra labor. 

Laurens did indeed write Congress on the 12th of December, 
1777, praying them to elect his successor, as the business of 
the office was likely to fall into confusion in his inability to 
give it proper attention. The matter was postponed, and, in 
Laurens's words, they declined in very complimentary style 
to entertain the resignation.^ 

November 28, 1777, Laurens declined to vote on the resolu- 
tion, which, however, was adopted, for the Committee of 
Commerce to turn over $250,000 a year for three years to 
Alexander Gillon, of South Carolina, to buy goods in the 
United States for shipment to Europe for purchasing arms, 
clothes, etc., for Congress. Laurens doubted Gillon's wisdom 
and stability and in writing to Adams, October 4, 1779. 
sneered at "his fervor for accomplishing everything by the 
force of his own powers." He criticized him for sending a 
substitute to Europe on a former occasion. Gillon replied 
that this had been on account of his illness. The arrangement 
was soon rescinded by Congress, as Gillon entered instead 
upon his ill-fated naval enterprise on behalf of the State of 
South Carolina.^ 

' Laurens to Gervais, Dec. 30, 1777; Jours. Cong., ix., 1022. Wharton 
in his edition of the Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, i., 
581, note, seems to confuse this with Laurens's resignation a year later, 
which was accepted, and which had no connection with iU health. Indeed 
Laurens offered his resignation on three separate occasions, and in both 
instances in which the circumstances permitted, Congress refused to accept 
it. See below, p. 302. 

' Laurens to Adams, Oct. 4, 1779, and S. C. Hist. Mag., x., 6-7. A clear 



240 Life of Henry Laurens 

The loose spontaneous union which had sprung into exist- 
ence in 1774 for purposes presumed to be contemporary was 
little suited to conserve the energy and enthusiasm which 
marked the first months of the Revolution. It supplied no 
great executive positions to invite ability and ambition to a 
national career, and the secrecy of the debates in Congress left 
membership in that body all the drudgery without any of the 
glamour of a legislative assembly. Moreover an immense 
amount of constructive work in constitutional law and impera- 
tive tasks of administration and war drew many of the ablest 
men during 1776 into the service of their individual States. 
South Carolina's large and very able delegation of that year, 
e.g., had sunk since the early days of November, 1777, to one 
member, Mr. Laurens, in actual attendance, who alone for 
five months represented the State. ^ The low ebb to which 
representation sank is illustrated by the fact that on December 
8, 1777, e. g., eight States were represented by one delegate 
each, three by two each, and two not at all, among them all 
not more than three or four men of any distinction then or 
later. Not only did the demand for able men in the service 
of the States drain Congress, but it is undeniable that the early 
enthusiasm in the cause was languishing. An apathy hard 
for us to understand in our day of ardent national patriotism 
had settled upon the people, about half of whom, we must 
always remember, had from the first been either hostile 
or indifferent towards independence. These burning words 
of protest are representative of Laurens's exclamations of 
indignation throughout his membership : 

O Carolina! O my country! shame to you that in this great, this mo- 
mentous cause so few among your many worthy sons are found zealous 

account of the neglected incident last mentioned is given by Mr. D. E. 
Huger Smith in the 5. C. Hist, and Genealogical Mag., ix., 188-219. Vol. x., 
Nos. I and 2, contains an article by Mr. Smith on the Luxemburg claims 
growing out of Gillon's enterprise, and letters from Gillon. 

' Oct. 20, 1777, Thomas Heyward obtained leave to convey his family 
to South Carolina. His last vote is recorded Oct. 31, 1777. Resuming his 
seat June 6, 1778, he remained until the last part of August. William Henry 
Drayton entered Congress March 30, 1778. — Journals, ix., 824, 854, and 
X., 294. 



The Continental Congress, 1777 241 

advocates — so few of them will leave their yokes of oxen — their pleasures — 
their emoluments and apply their talents, their whole abilities, to the one 
thing needful. You know I have always run the line of true Liberty paral- 
lel to that of the Kingdom of Heaven. Lukewarm, half way votaries are 
as unfit in these times to enjoy that as such characters were declared by the 
mouth of wisdom to be for entering into this. . . . Where are the effects of 
our loud pretensions to patriotism which were heard three years ago? Do 
these good people who are now eating and drinking and accumulating pelf 
by every possible means vainly think that with the 28th of June, 1776,' all 
danger passed away? . . . Alas! these are indeed vain thoughts. Gracious 
God, interpose on our behalf and raise my countrymen out of their lethargy 
— the most fatal error they could fall into — that of attending every man to 
his private interest. This evil seems to pervade aU. classes in South Carolina ; 
we are lulled by a transient success into a sleep of security which will pro- 
duce our ruin.* 

He goes on to say that unless South Carolina keeps up her 
fortifications and regiments, the British will select her as an 
easy conquest. He gave this same advice officially in his 
correspondence with the State's Chief Executive, Rawlins 
Lowndes. He continues: 

Fill your delegacy in Congress with able men, I say — no frolickers, no 
jolly fellows, or you will be despised and you will have cause to rue your 
neglect. . . . Go on and slumber in golden dreams tUl calamity shall over- 
whelm you, and till your faces shall be covered with shame and disgrace. 

He laments that the incapacity of Congress has lost "the 
opportunity of driving the British out of Philadelphia this 
winter"; but note that he does not denounce Washington, 
like certain other eminent statesmen, for not doing the impos- 
sible and driving them out without supplies and an army. 

Laurens's plea for the preparation of the Southern States 
for attack was justified by the results when the time of trial 
came eighteen months later. He realized the peril of leaving 
an opening at one end of the confederacy and did not cease to 
seek to have it remedied. He early saw and sought to guard 
against the danger of England's seeking to cut off Georgia and 
South Carolina. For five months, he wrote in January, 1779, 

* The date of the victory over the British fleet at Ft. Moultrie. 
' Laurens to Gervais, Dec. 30, 1777. 
16 



242 Life of Henry Laurens 

my efforts "have been incessant for fixing the attention of the 
higher powers to the safety of the Southern States," His 
anxiety for this did not indicate sectional feeHng. We shall 
find him on the contrary incurring the indignation of his 
colleague and the entire North CaroUna delegation because of 
the sacrifices which he was willing to make at the expense of 
these States in order to obtain certain benefits in other regions 
which he deemed of indispensable advantage to the Union. 
Probably no member of Congress habitually acted upon views 
more free from sectional bias. ^ 

' See especially Laurens to Washington, Oct. lo, 1778, in MS. Letters to 
Washington in Library of Congress. Laurens to President Rawlins 
Lowndes, Jan. 29, 1779. 

One of Laurens's first acts touching military affairs after his entering 
Congress was to puncture a wild scheme for sending 1000 or 1200 men 
down the river from Pittsburg to the mouth of the Mississippi between the 
middle of October and Christmas, relying on the friendly assurances of 
the Spanish at New Orleans, with the cooperation of several frigates from 
them, to take Pensacola with its vast stores and the province of West 
Florida. — Laurens to Mcintosh, Aug. 11, 1777, and to Rutledge, Aug. 12, 
1777, in MSS. in Carnegie Institution for "Letters from Members of the 
Continental Congress. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE SARATOGA CONVENTION, 1 777-78 

IT was during the early months of Laurens's Presidency that 
Congress received the news of Burgoyne's surrender, news 
which was blighted somewhat by the unduly favorable terms 
under which the weakness of Gates had permitted the defeated 
invader to retrieve a great part of his disaster and deprive the 
Americans of some of the best fruits of victory. Marching 
from Canada with a splendid army of about eight thousand 
men, Burgoyne at first swept the ill-disciplined Americans 
before him in a series of triumphs which was not arrested until 
the loss of a thousand of his troops at Bennington, Vermont, 
on the 1 6th of August. As he passed further south along the 
confines of New England, the miHtia and unorganized farmers 
swarmed out until he was overwhelmingly outnimibered. 
Disappointed of the expected cooperation from the south and 
west, and seeing that further resistance meant destruction, 
the British commander was obliged to lay down his arms. 

General Gates, who had been upon none of the fields where 
the valor and skill of others had brought his enemy into his 
power, now for the first time came to the front. Burgoyne 
proposed his terms and Gates accepted them. By the "Con- 
vention" signed October i6th the defeated army were to 
surrender their arms, the officers were to retain their baggage, 
which was not to be searched under the pledge of General 
Burgoyne's honor that it should contain no public property, 
and the troops were to be marched to Boston, whence British 
vessels should transport them to England, on condition that 

243 



244 Life of Henry Laurens 

they should not again serve in North America during the war. ^ 
"It seems aknost incredible," says General CuUum, "that 
even Gates could have been guilty of such fatuity in sacrificing 
by this article aU the fruits of the past campaign, and jeo- 
pardizing American independence. "^ 

Such were the very courteous terms upon which Burgoyne 
secured the liberation of his army. But on hearing of CUnton's 
approach from below before the formalities were complete, 
he proposed to his officers to repudiate the preUminary articles 
of capitulation to which he had agreed on the 14th. ^ The 
large majority declared that this would be inconsistent with 
the public honor, and Burgoyne, though unchanged in his 
opinion, refrained from the contemplated action. The fact 
that he had thus been ready to repudiate the Convention by 
which his army had escaped destruction as soon as he found 
it to his interest, upon the strict legal ground that though it had 
been agreed to, it had not been signed, was not known to the 
Americans ; but it is a fact which should not be forgotten in 
judging the later conduct of both parties. 

The surrender, preceded by the planning of treachery by 
Burgoyne, was accompanied by its actual commission. The 
German colors were torn from their staffs, the latter burned 
and the former carried home in concealment. The Ameri- 
cans were told that the flags had been burned, says Madame 
Riedesel, wife of the German General, in her memoirs.'* 
At her husband's request, she sewed the flags into a mattress, 
which was protected by the terms of the Convention under 
Burgoyne's pledge of honor that no public property should be 
concealed in any officer's baggage. And on these flags the 
lady slept on her return across the Atlantic. At least one 
English Lieutenant Colonel concealed the colors of his regi- 
ment in his baggage and later presented them to George III. 
in person, who rewarded this act of perfidy with promotion. 

^ The Convention is given in full in Winsor's Narrative' of Critical 
History, vi., 317. 'lb., 319. 

^Journals, x., 32; Winsor, vi., 321; Journals, ix., 825, says he had 
signed the preliminaries; the other citations here given say he had agreed 
to them. * Quoted in Winsor, vi., 319. 



The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 245 

Other flags were either destroyed — likewise a violation of the 
treaty — or concealed. The military chest was withheld; 
many cartouche boxes and bayonets were not surrendered,^ 
and all the muskets were rendered unserviceable. These will- 
ful and numerous violations of the terms of the Convention 
forfeited for the guilty party, by the principles of international 
law, all the benefits of the compact ; but if nothing further had 
occurred these would probably have been overlooked, though 
the circumstances which were known at the time caused much 
dissatisfaction. General Howe soon fanned this into higher 
alarm by proposing with some persistence to change the place 
of embarkation from Boston to Newport or some other point 
on the sound under British control. Washington at once 
uttered his warning against any such concession, and on 
December i, 1777, Congress "utterly rejected" the proposal. 

November 8, 1777, Congress resolved that Burgoyne must 
give "the name and rank of every commissioned officer, and 
the name, former place of abode, occupation, size, age, and 
description of every non-commissioned officer and private 
soldier, " in order to guard against their again being employed 
in America, a precaution on the necessity of which Washing- 
ton was very positive and which had ample precedent in the 
conduct of Sir Guy Carleton and Burgoyne in paroling their 
American prisoners in 1776. Burgoyne refused to comply with 
this demand, but later submitted.* 

Congress had been informed that the vessels which Howe 
had provided for the troops were equipped for only a short 
voyage and not for one across the ocean — a report perhaps 
arising from ignorance and misunderstanding. To all this 
Burgoyne added an act of imprudence calciilated to stiffen 
into conviction the honest fears of Congress or to supply 
them with a desired pretext, as the case might be. In a letter 
to General Gates of November 14th he complained that 

^ It is stated in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 
for October, 1877, p. 46, that Gates granted permission for Burgoyne' s 
soldiers to retain their cartouche boxes. 

* Congress received the list December 18, with General Burgoyne's letter 
of Nov. 14 to Gen. Gates. — Journals, ix., 1034, 



246 Life of Henry Laurens 

quarters had not been furnished for his officers "according to 
rank, ' ' as guaranteed by the Convention. Six or seven officers 
were crowded into a room about ten feet square; he himself 
was compelled to pay £150 sterling for a furnished house till 
April I, even though he should embark in ten days. He con- 
tinues: 

While the supreme powers of the State are unable or unwilling to enforce 
their authority, and the inhabitants want the hospitality, or indeed the 
common civilization to assist us without it,^ the public faith is broke and 
we are the immediate sufferers." 

Complimentary passages to Gates follow. This letter 
Gates transmitted to Congress, December 3rd. 

General Heath, in command at Boston, had exerted every 
effort for the accommodation of his prisoners, but it proved a 
difficult matter in a small city much frequented by outsiders 
in need of quarters. At worst the prisoners were much bet- 
ter circumstanced than Washington's army, which was just 
about to enter upon the sufferings of VaUey Forge. 

We may believe that Burgoyne's words were meant only as 
a protest and reproach, but Congress, with all that had gone 
before and in the heat and passion of war, gave them their 
literal construction, a rule upon which Burgoyne had insisted 
on various occasions in interpreting the treaty itself. Howe's 
proposals, the information that his provisions were not being 
made for a trans-Atlantic voyage, and Burgoyne's refusal to 
furnish descriptions of his soldiers had already roused their 
suspicions. This certainly is true ; it may also be true that they 
had determined from the first to repudiate the Convention 
on one pretext or another. 

^ Fine words for the man who a few months before at the head of his 
supposedly invincible army composed largely of hired mercenaries and 
savage Indians had threatened these same people "to give stretch to the 
Indian forces under my direction (and they amount to thousands) ... in 
denouncing and executing the vengeance of the State against the willful 
outcasts. The messengers of justice and wrath await them in the field; 
and devastation, famine and every concomitant horror that a reluctant 
but indispensable prosecution of military duty must occasion, will bar 
the way to their return," ' Journals, ix., 1034. 



The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 247 

We find Laurens in August making an exhaustive inquiry 
into the loss of Ticonderoga and Fort Independence and the 
state of the army in the Northern department and displaying 
a strict, not to say unfriendly, spirit towards General Schuyler.^ 
The fact that he had served on important committees on the 
northern campaign and had exerted himself to strengthen the 
forces against Burgoyne added to his resentment at the fruits 
of victory having been lost by Gates's mismanagement.^ 
On reading Burgoyne's communication to Gates he expressed 
his indignation that Gates should have transmitted the letter 
without any comment on the phrase, "the public faith is 
broke. " Gates, he says, ' ' is perhaps a little captivated by the 
flattery of a British Lieutenant General. — It is certain he was 
too polite to make the Lt. Gen. and his troops prisoners at 
discretion, which might as easily have been effected as making 
a Convention. " The British commanders, he continues, have 
frequently said "there is no faith to be kept with rebels" 
and acted often in conformity with their words. Clinton and 
Howe have directed Burgoyne to take his troops to New York 
or the Delaware, and he is "a little staggered" by this order 
to break faith and now finds it necessary to lay foundations 
for so doing. The intention is clear from the small tonnage 
and provisioning of the ships sent for the troops and by the 
refusal to give descriptions of the captured officers. He dwells 
also on Burgoyne's failure to surrender the cartouche boxes 
and the mutilation of the muskets as violations of the Con- 
vention. He represents Burgoyne as surmising: General 
Gates may overlook my hint of being released from the Con- 
vention by Congress's having first broken faith, and in any 
event, I shall be safely at sea before they can see my letter and 
arrest my movements, and if after c .rying my troops into 

' MSS. of Aug. 27, 1777, in Carnegie Institution for "Letters from 
Members of the Continental Congress," copied from Lee MSS. in Univ. of 
Va. Library. 

* Cf. in this connection the following from a letter of Laurens to Lafay- 
ette, Jan. 12, 1778: "You would smile, sir, to hear me say that America 
is a little indebted to me for her successes against the threatening flood of 
the invincible Burgoyne" ; but he does not go into detail. 



248 Life of Henry Laurens 

an American port I am charged with breach of faith, I can 
point to my letter to the very General to whom I surrendered 
as exculpating me by reason of its notice that America had 
released me from obligation by first breaking faith. ^ 

Laurens was, we may believe, sincerely convinced that the 
troops were to be taken treacherously to some American port 
in British possession. Lafayette held the same opinion "upon 
the strongest circumstantial evidence." Washington was 
convinced, even before any suspicious circumstances came to 
his knowledge, that Burgoyne's entire army would be sent 
back into the country in absolute disregard of the Convention. 
He wrote: 

I am nevertheless convinced, that this event [the surrender of Bur- 
goyne] will not equal our expectations; and that, without great precaution, 
& very delicate management, we shall have aU these men — if not the officers 
— opposed to us in the spring. — Without the necessary precautions (as I 
have just observed) I think this wiU happen ; and unless great deUcacy is 
used in the precautions, a plea wiU be given them, and they wiU justify, 
a breach of the Covenant on their part — do they not declare (many of them) 
that no faith is to be held with Rebels? — did not the EngUsh do the very 
thing I am now suspecting them of, after the Convention of Closter Seven, 
upon changing their commander? — will they hold better faith with us than 
they did with the French? — I am persuaded, myself, that they wiU not — 
and yet, I do not see how it is to be prevented, without a direct violation 
of the articles ourselves, or, by attempting to guard against the evil, give 
them a plea of justification on theirs.^ 

Burgoyne's charge, "the public faith is broke," coming as 
it did after a long series of suspicious circumstances and minor 
violations of the letter of the Convention by the British, must 

' These comments are in Laurens's letter books in the S. C. Hist. Soc. and 
also in the Laurens MSS. in the L. I. Hist. Soc. 

"Washington to Richard Henry Lee, Oct. 28, 1777, in the Century 
Magazine, Ixxxi, 663; March, 191 1. A Washington letter then pub- 
lished for the first time. Richard Henry Lee says {Letters to Washington, 
ii., 45-6) that the British were not guilty of breaking faith in disregarding 
the Convention of Kloster-Seven, as it "stipulated particidarly that the 
Court of Versailles must ratify, and that within a certain time, which was 
not done until long after the time was elapsed, and before which ratification 
the troops of Hanover had returned to arms." 



The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 249 

be admitted to have furnished ground for the gravest doubts 
and so to have imposed upon Congress the duty of guarding 
the country from the calamitous train of circumstances which 
seemed to threaten. The state of mind of the best and most 
scrupulous patriots is doubtless revealed in the above letter 
of Washington and Richard Henry Lee's reply: 

It is unfortunately too true that our enemies pay little regard to good 
faith, or any obligation of justice and humanity which render the Convention 
of Saratoga a matter of great moment; and it is also, as you justly observe, 
an affair of infinite delicacy. The undoubted advantage they will take 
even of the appearance of infraction on our part, and the American charac- 
ter, which is concerned in preserving its faith inviolate, cover this affair 
with difficulties, and prove the disadvantage we are under in conducting war 
against an old, corrupt, and powerful people, who, having much credit and 
influence in the world, wiU venture upon things that would totally ruin 
the reputation of young and rising communities like ours. ' 

There was every reason to fear that Great Britain might 
push the breach of faith charged by Burgoyne to the fullest 
logical conclusion, and certainly breaches of faith on her part 
in the war would have been allowed to pass, as Lee expresses 
it, on account of her "having much credit and influence in the 
world." 

The matter was the subject of protracted debate in Congress, 
and on January 8, 1778, that body accepted the report of their 
committee to the effect that Burgoyne and Carleton themselves 
in 1776 had required lists and descriptions of captured Amer- 
ican prisoners, which, as an additional precaution, were even 
made out in the handwriting of the prisoners themselves, and 
that Burgoyne's refusal of such lists now, especially coming 
just nine days after his charge that "the public faith is broke, 
must be considered "in an alarming point of view"; further, 
that "This charge of a breach of the public faith is of a most 
serious nature, pregnant with alarming consequences, and 
deserves greater attention, as it is not dropped in a hasty 
expression, dictated by sudden passion, but is delivered as a 
deliberate act of judgment, committed to writing, and sent to 
the general with whom he made the convention." Congress 

* Quoted in Winsor, vi., 321. 



^50 Life of Henry Laurens 

Resolved, therefore, That the embarkation of Lieutenant-General 
Burgoyne, and the troops under his command, be suspended until a dis- 
tinct and explicit ratification of the convention of Saratoga shall be properly 
notified by the court of Great Britain to Congress.^ 

Up to this point the action of Congress appears to me to be 
beyond criticism, save as to the character of the ratification 
demanded of Great Britain. To have allowed the troops to 
pass beyond their control after the circumstances which had 
occurred without some assurance that America was not to be 
made the laughing stock of the world and the existence of the 
republic jeopardized would have been dereliction of duty. 

Burgoyne was crushed by the result of his petulant language 
and hastened to explain that the conclusions drawn by Con- 
gress were not justified by any intention he had entertained. 
But it had by this time become known from a published ex- 
tract of his own diary that his statement that his standards had 
been left in Canada was a falsehood, not to speak of other 
unqualified and known breaches of faith on his part; and 
Congress very justly replied "that the security which these 
States have hitherto had in his personal honor is hereby 
destroyed."^ The fear that a man who had specifically lied 
about standards and had broken faith in surrendering his arms 
when put with unreserving magnanimity upon his honor 
would lie to accomplish a much more desired object was, to 
say the least, only the common precaution of mankind in such 
circumstances — a precaution the departure from which almost 
invariably has to be regretted by the unhappy party who allows 
his charity to overweigh his judgment into making an exception. 

However suspicious the circumstances might be of England's 
intention honorably to execute the Convention, it must be al- 
lowed that there was really very little reason why she should 
wish to evade her obligations ; for surely the terms were suffi- 
ciently favorable as they stood. The only material alteration 
she could have asked would have been to retain the arms and 
have the troops transported to any American port she might 
choose. She might have carried them from Boston to Charles- 
ton or New York and by refraining from landing them sooner 

' Journals, x., 29-35. ' Journals, ix., 1059-64. 



The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 251 

than a double trip across the Atlantic would have required, 
have maintained with a straight face that she had not violated 
the spirit of the Convention in any essential particular; for 
the dullest understanding recognized that if they ever reached 
England they would immediately release an equal number of 
troops on duty in European quarters who would be promptly 
shipped off to America. 

The resolution of January 8th was worded with malicious 
care. Laurens exulted in the dilemma in which England was 
placed. If the court gives the required ratification, he says, 
it "will amount to an acknowledgement of our capacity to 
treat as a nation; anything below this will be to retain her 
claim upon us as subjects in rebellion with whom faith is not 
to be held but for the benefit of the sovereign. " ^ 

In demanding a ratification, as was not only properly but 
imperatively its duty, Congress deliberately worded its demand 
in terms to which England could not accede. This went 
beyond an attempt to secure a guarantee against fraud and 
amounted to annexing an additional condition, saying in 
effect, We will not carry out the original agreement of our 
authorized agent unless you meet the new demand of acknowl- 
edging that we are an established government among the 
nations of the earth which you are attempting by conquest 
to subdue. To this ground once chosen Congress tenaciously 
adhered. The British commissioners sent in 1778 to secure 
the return of the colonies to their allegiance offered to renew 
the Convention^; but as they had not been appointed for 
that purpose. Congress very justly, September 4, 1778: 

Resolved, That no ratification of the Saratoga Convention, which may be 
tendered in consequence of powers, which only reach that case by construc- 
tion and implication, or which may subject whatever is transacted relative 
to it to the future approbation or disapprobation of the Parliament of 
Great Britain, can be accepted by Congress. 

Says Lecky: 

Sir Henry Clinton subsequently sent to the Congress instructions from 
the English Secretary of State authorizing him expressly to demand a ful- 

I Laurens to President Lowndes of South CaroUna, Aug. 11, 1778. 
=• Lecky, iv., 475- 



252 Life of Henry Laurens 

fillment of its terms, and, if required, to ratify in the King's name all the 
conditions contained in it; but the Congress still refused to release the 
prisoners who were thus by an act of barefaced treachery detained in Amer- 
ica for several years. 

Laurens was one of the principal movers for suspending the 
Convention. At the critical time in December he was pain- 
fully ill with the gout. 

Late that evening [he says] and again very early next morning I received 
visits from a zealous member of Congress pressing me if possible by any 
means to attend the House the 26th, adding, the request was made by the 
desire of many members not so immediately to the President as to a member 
who solely represented a State, intimating that the business which I had 
set or encouraged to be set in motion of the highest importance was to be 
agitated. 

He was accordingly ^^ carried'' two days into the house. He 
continues : 

I have labored hard, very hard, to advance it to its present state, con- 
scious that I am doing eminent service to my country. . . . The act is 
great and great good or evil will follow as its consequences. ^ 

The account to his dearest confidant, his son John, is to the 
same effect. 

Tell me your thoughts on our determination to suspend the embarkation 
of Mr. Burgoyne. I am not answerable for, nor do I claim the merit of, 
the manner in which the thing is ushered into the world. 'Tis plain and 
simple; not free from exceptions, I know. All that was done while I sat 
in the chair and is mere fringe and law from an infant manufactory; but for 
the thing itself, the propriety, the justice and the sound policy, I contended 
in the Commee {sic) of the whole. So well was I persuaded of the rectitude 
of the act, I declared I would rather lose my whole estate than hear a 
majority of dissenting voices. The grand resolve passed nem. con.* 

This great determination will have its effect in Europe, in England more 
especially, whether good or evil time wiU inform us. I feel strongly con- 

' Laurens to Gervais, Dec. 30, 1777. He did not dispatch this letter at 
once. Exactly a month later he adds, "I have just passed my eye over 
them (the thoughts expressed in the letter) & determined, imperfect as 
they are, to submit them to your candor." 

* Nemine contradicente, i. e. no one voting to the contrary — a very 
common expression in the old days, and really more accurate than our 
"unanimously." 



The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 253 

finned that the act is good and therefore entertain no alarming apprehen- 



sions. 



Whether the statement is true that he was "the influencing 
person that caused the abrogation of the Saratoga Convention, " 
he was certainly a prominent moving spirit. He wrote 
Lafayette, January 12, that he has been "a strenuous advo- 
cate in favor of it, " and to another friend he described the few 
who held back as "timorous dunces." Against these frank 
and unstudied declarations concerning "the business which 
I had set or encouraged to be set in motion, " is to be placed 
Laurens's answer to a friend who informed him while a prisoner 
in the Tower of London that he was criticized as being "the 
influencing person that caused the abrogation of the Saratoga 
Convention." His situation was then such that he would 
naturally desire to minimize his part as much as possible, and 
his answer recalls his shrinking in 1769 from the condemnation 
which he felt would be his if he pubHcly acknowledged his 
disapproval of the slave trade. He was ill in bed, he replied, 
for the nearly three weeks during which the committee were 
considering the matter, and were he to claim "such merit'' as is 
attributed to him, they would treat him with contempt and 
indignation. It is true that he, being the only member from 
South CaroUna, was carried in a chair into Congress, where he 
heard the committee's report and voted in its favor; but he 
disclaimed further responsibility than for his simple vote. 
As in 1769, the test was severe, and as then, his honest-dis- 
honest answer illustrated how grave is the danger that even 
one who prides himself on his "candor" may at times fail to 
live up to its perfect practice. 

Such is the history of the suspension of the Convention, 
for which the old Congress has generally received unsparing 
criticism. In refusing to accept any ratification on the part 
of Great Britain except one in the nature of a communication 
of one sovereign with another, Congress introduced a new 
condition and placed itself in a position wrong in itself which 
could be defended only upon grounds of formahty. They were 

^ Laurens to John Laurens, Jan. 14, 1778, in 5. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 11-12. 



254 Life of Henry Laurens 

determined not to risk the life of the republic by allowing 
Burgoyne's army to get back to Europe and an equal number 
of free troops to be sent to America in their place; but none 
would have dared to affront Gates in the flush of his success 
and popularity by an open repudiation of the disastrous act 
he had committed. Yet, after all has been admitted, it 
appears to me that Congress has been unfairly dealt with. 
Their conduct should be judged by the customs of the age and 
the pecuUar circumstances and conduct of the two parties 
concerned. England herself had only twenty years before 
shamelessly repudiated the Convention of Kloster Seven 
through which the King's son, the Duke of Cumberland, had 
saved Hanover from devastation and his army from destruction 
by the French by engaging the neutrality of the Hanoverians. 
So enraged was George II. that he proposed an immediate 
repudiation on the ground that his son had been given no 
order for such a treaty. "But very full powers, sir; very full 
powers, " replied Pitt. Yet very shortly, without any ground 
except technicality to stand upon, on the advice of this same 
Pitt, England repudiated this Convention of which she had 
been the beneficiary and rearmed the Hanoverian troops. 
Well might Congress fear that the action of George II. under 
the great Pitt would prove none too hard for George III. in 
alliance with the corrupt party that then held power. Lecky, 
whoso roundly denounces Congress's "barefaced treachery," 
Is satisfied to remark that 

The Convention of Closter-Seven had been ratified on neither side. It 
had not been rigidly observed by the French, there were no stipulations for 
the duration of the neutrality of the Hanoverians, and it might on the 
whole be reasonably regarded as a mere temporary armistice. Pitt re- 
commended to repudiate it. The Hanoverian army was armed anew.' 

Not only twenty years before Saratoga, but less than three 
years after, was England ready when it served her interests 
to repudiate her obligations. Sir Henry Clinton, after the 
surrender of Charleston in May, 1780, placed the inhabitants 
upon their paroles with the pledge to respect their persons and 

' Lecky, ii., 412. 



The Saratoga Convention, 1777-78 255 

property so long as they remained neutral . ^ And yet in only 
a few weeks he broke this faith and called upon those to 
whom it was plighted to take up arms for the King or be 
treated as guilty of treason — threats which he followed up with 
great barbarity. It is unnecessary to remark upon the slur- 
ring of this by the British writers of the partisan sort; but 
even so philosophical an historian as Lecky can bring him- 
self to no severer condemnation of this act of perfidy, by which 
the population of an entire State were plunged into the most 
horrible phase of the war that characterized the entire Revolu- 
tion, than to call it "a very injudicious proclamation" which 
"evoked a great and reasonable discontent. "* 

Great Britain's treatment of prisoners amounted to a breach 
of military honor. They have exercised "every species of 
cruelty," Laurens wrote to President Lowndes, August 20, 
1778, to force American captives to enlist in the British navy, 
and failing, have exchanged the weak, half-starved, sickly sur- 
vivors for stout, well-fed British captives. So fraudulent 
was the attempt that Washington refused to receive them in 
exchange for an equal number. 

Let us in judging Congress remember the conduct of the 
English. And by all means let us avoid representing as an 
injured innocent, General Burgoyne, who "spent half his nights 
in singing and drinking and amusing himself with the wife 
of a commissary, who was his mistress,"^ and his days in 
mustering his savage Indians and thundering threats of their 
massacres and the tortures of famine against the women and 
children of the well-ordered villages and farms of New England, 
and who checkered his conduct under the treaty with both 
plotted and executed fraud and falsehood. 



Note on the after history of Burgoyne' army. — After about 
a year in Boston, Burgoyne's army was moved to Charlottes- 

I McCrady, iii., 498, 553; Windsor, vi., 322. * V., 21. 

3 Madame Riedesel's Memoirs, quoted in Wharton, i., 309, n. 



256 Life of Henry Laurens 

ville, Va., to render its subsistence easier. Gardens were laid 
out and tended by the soldiers. Those with trades were al- 
lowed to go about plying them. Not only was every facility 
allowed to escape, but Congress on April 29, 1778, offered 
liberal rewards in land and stock to any who would settle in 
America. Laurens voted against this. ^ Some of the soldiers 
are said to have been employed in the army as substitutes by 
unwilling Americans; but they frequently deserted to their 
original allegiance. Escapes and desertions so reduced their 
numbers that at the conclusion of the war only a fraction of 
them remained in captivity.^ 

^ Journals, x., 405-10. 

^ Trevelyan, quoting l^o-^eWs Hessians, says that in 1780, 1500 of them 
were still in detention in Virginia. Of the total ntunber of 29,875 German 
mercenaries sent by Great Britain to America, only 17,313 returned to 
Germany in 1 783. Lowell's Hessians, 20-2 1 . 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE CONWAY CABAL, 1 777-78 

THE conspiracy for the displacement of Washington and 
distribution of honors and emoluments to Gates and 
his associates known as the Conway Cabal ran its course 
through Congress during the same months of 1777-8 which 
were occupied with the Saratoga Convention. A review of the 
factions which existed in Congress will help us to understand 
this as well as other political tangles through which we must 
pass.^ There early appeared in Congress two roughly de- 
fined party groups. One, on account of its passionate attach- 
ment to a pronounced form of republicanism, scented danger 
from military power and executive domination, and in their 
dread of these sought to keep all executive business in the 
hands of Congress through committees and boards and strove 
for a strict system of control over the Commander-in-Chief. 
The policy of these, for the most part disinterested but often 
impractical patriots, must be ranked high among the causes 
which imperilled the success of the Revolution. At its core 
was the "family compact" of the Lees and Adamses. They 
constituted what Wharton aptly calls the "expulsive," or 
" liberative, " party, from their zeal being so absorbed with this 
end as to blind them to the necessity of efficient administrative 
and miHtary machinery. 

Prominent among the leaders of the other, called by Whar- 
ton the "constructive" party, were Washington, FrankHn, 
Jay, Robert R. Livingston, and Robert Morris, men who had 

' Wharton in his Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, 
i., 252 et passim, gives an excellent account of the factional lines and con. 
tests in Congress, which is here followed. 
17 257 



258 Life of Henry Laurens 

not been so active as the others in bringing on the trouble 
with the mother country, but who showed themselves far 
better qualified for conducting it from a spasmodic rebellion 
into a successful revolution. These were naturally men of 
wealth, conservatism or administrative experience. They 
recognized the necessity of executive independence and a large 
degree of freedom and authority in a single man in the tasks 
of diplomacy and war. Criss-crossing these divisions on 
principle and throwing issues into confusion were divergent 
sectional interests and innumerable petty personal spites and 
jealousies, and at times darker schemes of fraud and personal 
ambition. ^ It was this unwholesome poHtical situation which 
made it possible for the plotters of the Conway cabal to come 
so perilously near success. 

Laurens always denounced the spirit of party and emphati- 
cally denied that he belonged to any faction ; and from all that 
I can gather, he could say this with as much truth as any man 
in Congress. Certainly it was impossible, as we shall see, 
to control his vote or curb his freedom of action for even the 
dearest factional objects.^ He felt warm friendship for mem- 
bers of both the groups outlined above and is found at times 
cooperating with one and at times with the other, but generally 
in ways not indicative of factional allegiance. His character 
and antecedents would all draw him to the "constructive" 
party of Washington and Franklin, and so far as I have been 
able to discover regarding questions which concerned the 
essential line of cleavage between them and the "expulsives, " 
his ideas and aims would group him with the former. It is 
true that he often cooperated with the leaders of the "expul- 

' Wharton points out that the New England members long cherished 
resentment against Washington for his severe strictures upon the New 
England officers and troops in a letter of Aug. 26, 1775, to R. H. Lee. 

^ Laurens to Gervais, Sept. 5, 1777, says: "Congress is not the respect- 
able body which I expected to have found." "When I first arrived here I 
was told by way of caution that in Congress there were parties. " I found 
"parties within parties, divisions and subdivisions to as great a possible 
extent as the niunber thirty-five (for we never have more together) will 
admit of. As it is whoUy contrary to my genius and practice to hold with 
any of them as party, so I incur the censure of not being long with any. " 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 259 

sives"; but this was on questions not relating to the principle 
under discussion and is evidently explicable on the merits of 
the individual matters in Such cases. It is also true that 
many, perhaps most, of his intimate friends were among the 
"expulsives" — a fact which might easily mislead us into jump- 
ing to an unwarranted conclusion regarding his political 
principles. Personally he was much drawn to the Adamses 
and Lees, because of the purity of their republicanism and the 
integrity of their characters; but not only was he free from 
their jealousy of Washington, but he resisted all attempts to 
embarrass the General's authority and went so far as to 
desire a complete revision of the constitution by a convention 
acting independently of Congress and in consultation with the 
Commander-in-Chief, and urged sending the French treaties 
to Washington, even the secret articles, and denounced the 
party spirit which opposed.^ 

Nothing at any time interfered with the warm and mutual 
attachment between Laurens and Washington . As the British 
were pressing on Philadelphia in September, 1777, he wrote: 

God grant Mr. Washington, that brave and virtuous, that disinterested 
Patriot-Hero, success — in a conflict which is now probably in agitation and 
we shall have further time to retrospect our proceedings and to mend 
what shall appear to have been amiss — if he fails — a new scene wtU open — 
nothing but virtue then can save us — we never shall caU in her aid until 
we feel severe distress. =* 

The multiplication of quotations is useless. We shall have 
ample evidence as we proceed of his uninterrupted devotion 
to the Commander-in-Chief. 

For Franklin he entertained the highest esteem from a 
period antedating the Revolution to the end of his life, as he 
manifested by voting against his recall when his Adams-Lee 
enemies were seeking to displace him in 1779.^ While his 

•Laurens to John Laurens, May 11, 1778, in Carnegie Inst, as below. 

* Laurens to Gervais, Sept. 5-9, 1777, in transcripts ior Letters from 
Members of the Continental Congress in Carnegie Institution. He says 
that Mr. Middleton exactly coincides with his sentiments; Mr. H. (Hey- 
ward) differs, but Laurens thoroughly respects his opinion and sincerity. 

3 Cf. Chapter XXL, p. 320, and n. 2. For vote of April 22, 1779, see 



26o Life of Henry Laurens 

relations with Robert Morris and Jay were strained, the 
questions which divided them had nothing to do with the 
"constructive" or "liberative" principles. 

Though Laurens entertained decided views of republican 
simplicity, he was a life-long conservative, denounced Con- 
gress's unsystematic methods of business, and when he had 
occasion to express himself on the proper functions of the 
executive, desired a more powerful single head than most of his 
countrymen would approve.^ His desire in 1779 for a con- 
vention to devise a new constitution indicates a strong sym- 
pathy with constructive ideas, and the fact that he desired the 
Commander-in-Chief and a few other leading generals to assist 
in the work indicates distinctly that he favored a policy 
favorable to a vigorous executive; while his dissatisfaction 
expressed with the existing committee system in discussing the 
objects of the convention would certainly not rank him with 
the "liberative" party so deeply attached to committees and 
boards.^ Taking it all in all, we may say that his associations 
were mainly with the Adams-Lee group in Congress, but that 
he did not share their narrow ideas on military affairs, admin- 
istration, and diplomacy. 

Wharton says^ : 

Laurens was in the fall or 1777 regarded as sympathizing with Samuel 
Adams and the Lees in their dread of executive invasion of Congressional 
prerogative. This was the cause of his being looked upon by Gates and 
Conway as friendly to their cause, differing in this respect from his son, 
John Laurens, who was devotedly attached to Washington. 

Again in the mosaic of truth and fiction with which Wharton 
fills out a notice of Laurens in his sketches of the diplomats of 
the Revolution, he states that, "carried away by the Saratoga 
victory he for a time attached himself personally to Gates. "'« 

Jours. Cong., xiii., 499-500. Sumner, i., 186, is mistaken in saying that South 
CaroUna and Virginia, voted to recall Frankhn. It was North Carolina 
and Virginia. To President John Rutledge Laurens wrote, Dec. i, 1777, 
"We have lately received the strongest confirmation of the great Franklin's 
opinion." ' See below, p. 336 on President's veto. 

* See the letter in Chapter XXII., p. 336. 3 1., 280-81. 

4 Wharton, i., 581. 



The Conway Cabal, iJJ'J-jS 261 

Nothing could be more groundless than the statement that 
Laurens "for a time attached himself personally to Gates." 
We recall the severe censure passed by Laurens upon Gates 
for allowing Burgoyne to escape unconditional surrender. 
His opposition to those who did attach themselves to Gates 
appears clearly in his letter of January 3, 1778, to John 
Laurens, which shows how far he was from being "carried 
away by the Saratoga victory " : 

Comparisons I have often heard of the miscarriages and inactivity in the 
Southern, with the successes in the Northern department' ; but I have never 
been at a loss for arguments to convince reasonable men that there was no 
ground for censure in one case, and that in the other we had been fortunate. 
— It would be useless to relate sttiff of this class; men of sense treat these 
things with contempt. 

To the same effect was his message to Lafayette on the 
I2th: "Gates conquered Burgoyne under every disadvantage 
of situation and reduced to the last extremity"; and as to 
speaking of this success in derogation of Washington, "an- 
swers are easily given to such silly remarks."^ 

These remarks and fuller letters to be quoted presently 
make it plain that Laurens was not swept into any unreason- 
able admiration for Gates, far less that "he for a time attached 
himself personally to " him. We cannot doubt that he esteemed 
the character and ability of the "victor of Saratoga" more 
highly than they stand in the verdict of history; but who did 
not in 1777 and '8 ? He approved instituting the Board of War. 
Washington had earlier urged such a Board, and there was 
excellent reason to expect the new plan to be an improvement 
on the old.^ Laurens was an absolute stranger to the sinister 
plot of placing enemies of Washington in control of the Board. 

Laurens was very severe on Conway, but seems to have 
considered that Gates was in danger of being drawn away by 
that officer rather than being himself the tacit leader and will- 

'The Northern department was the region north of New York City; 
the Southern that around Philadelphia. 

' Laurens's expressions to others during October and November, 1777, 
were to the same effect. E. g., to Huger, and others in Laurens MSS. in 
Hist. Soc. Penn. 3 Bancroft, iv., 425; v., 210. 



262 Life of Henry Laurens 

ing beneficiary of the clique. He regretted the breach between 
Gates and Washington and sought to heal it for the good of 
the service.^ 

'During the Conway Cabal Lafayette carried on a constant intimate 
correspondence with Laurens in which he freely expressed the most severe 
opinions of Conway and Gates. Though Lafayette had unpleasant passes 
with Gates and derided the idea of his success at Saratoga entitling him to 
great consideration as a general, he does not appear to have suspected the 
depth of his schemes. — S. C. Hist. Mag. for 1906. 

Lest I should be thought to conceal evidence, I give here the most inti- 
mate and complimentary passages I have been able to discover in all of 
Laurens's Papers and in the Gates Papers in the New York Hist. Soc. 
Library. Nov. 5, 1777, Laurens as President addressed the following 
official letter of congratulation to Gen. Gates: 

"I feel myself particularly happy in the honour of transmitting the 
enclosed vote of thanks by Congress in their own name and in behalf of 
their constituents to yourself, to Major General Lincoln, Major General 
Arnold and the rest of the officers and troops under your command, with an 
additional vote for perpetuating the remembrance of this great event by a 
medal. 

"Your name Sir wiU be written in the breasts of the grateful Americans of 
the present age and sent down to posterity in characters which wiU remain 
indelible when the gold shall have changed its appearance. Permit me, 
sir, to add that I participate not only in the general rejoicing but in that also 
which is visible among your very best friends." — Gates Papers in N. Y- 
Hist. Soc. and in President Laurens's letter book in Library of Cong. 

After announcing to Gen. Gates his election to the Board of War, Presi- 
dent Laurens continues (Nov. 28, 1777) : 

... "a circumstance strongly expressive of the high sense which Con- 
gress entertain of your abilities and peculiar fitness to discharge the duties 
of that important office, upon the right execution of which, the safety and 
interest of the United States eminently depend. " — Gates Papers in N. Y. 
Hist. Soc. 

President Laurens to Gen. Gates, Nov. 29, 1777, is rather cold, containing 
nothing beyond the barest necessity of official position. — Laurens MSS. in 
Hist. Soc. Penn. 

Official letter of Laurens to President John Rutledge, Dec. i, 1777: 

"Major General Gates is appointed by Congress President of the New 
Board of War and to act occasionally in the field. His associates at the 
Board— Gen. Mifflin, Colo. Pickering, Colo. Jo. Trumbull and Mr. R. 
Peters. Salary 2500 dollars per annum. We have great expectations from 
this institution. A new appointment for commerce I hope will soon take 
place. Owing to ill luck or somewhat else the old has produced little 
more than an expense most amazing — and a ragged army." 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 263 

Having examined Laurens's attitude toward Gates, we may 
notice Gates's attitude towards him. How Laurens was re- 
garded and by whom and with what degree of correctness as 
to his attitude towards executive interference in 1777, I 
cannot say ; nor do I know to what extent Gates and Conway 
fell into the error of looking upon him as favorable to their 
cause; but certainly such feelers as they threw out in his 
direction, as will presently appear, met with the most dis- 
appointing results. I do know, however, that nothing could 
be more unwarranted than Wharton's suddenly shifting at this 
point from quoting these men's supposed opinions into the 
direct statement on his own responsibility that Laurens differed 
from his son in not being attached to Washington. The rest 
of this chapter will show that Washington had no more de- 
voted friend. 

The chief beneficiary of the plot to displace Washington was 
this same Horatio Gates, whose partisans had been steadily 
seeking since Saratoga to bring Congress to the opinion that 
the safety of the country demanded that he, instead of Wash- 
ington, should be Commander-in-Chief of the American armies. 
How far he was the chief engineer and how far the willing ac- 
complice of more active leaders is somewhat obscure. The plot 
had a few active supporters in Congress and the army. Chief 
among the former were James Lovell of Massachusetts and 
Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania, and among the latter. Gates, 
Mifflin, and Conway. The base and perilous designs of these 
men found ready material in the prejudice, impatience, and 
ignorance of military affairs of a number of Congressmen who 

Laurens, March 6, 1778, recommends Lafayette to consult Washington 
and also " Genl. Gates as an officer and a patriot, not as a part of the Board 
of War. " 

Mr. Laurens the private member of Congress writes to Gen. Gates, May 
i5i 1779. that he rejoices to hear of the general council of officers at Valley 
Forge. "Let us keep our friends in harmony and we shall have nothing to 
fear from our enemies. " — Gates Papers in N. Y. Hist. Soc. 

Congress resolved, Nov. 4, 1777, to give Gates a gold medal. In a letter 
to Congressman Laurens, Gen. Gates says that he -supposes he wiU have 
to wait until Laurens is President again to get his gold medal. — Laurens 
MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



264 Life of Henry Laurens 

were free from their colleagues' guilty aims, but deserve, never- 
theless, the censure which they have received for the narrowness 
of their views and the facility with which they allowed them- 
selves to be made the tools of a crew whose success would have 
meant the death of the Republic. Laurens furnishes us an 
intimate picture of their criticisms in this scrap of memoran- 
dum as early as October, 1777: 

I am writing in Congress and in the midst of much talk (not regtilar 
Congress). "Buz!" says one; " I would if I had been Commr. of that army 
with such powers have procured all the necessaries which are said to be 
wanted without such whining complaints." 

" I would, " says 2d., "have prevented the amazing desertions which have 
happened. It only wants proper attention at fountain head." 3d.: "It 
is very easy to prevent intercourse betwen the army and the enemy and as 
easy to gain intelligence; but we never mind who comes in and who goes 
out of our camp." "In short," 4th., "our army is under no regulation 
nor discipline," &c., &c., &c. 

You know I abhor tell tales, but these sounds hurt me exceedingly. I 
know the effects of loose tongues; I know the cruelty of tongues speaking 
the fullness of designing hearts — nevertheless I am afraid there may be some 
ground for some of these remarks. A good heart may be too diffident, 
too apprehensive of doing right, righteous, proper acts, lest such should be 
interpreted arbitrary. But good God, shall we (break in MS.) five hundred 
and destroy five millions? 

The subject is too delicate to dwell upon. I wish I was well acquainted 
with the man whom I think, all in all, the first of the age, and that he would 
follow my advice. He accepts the opinion of some who have no superior 
claim, all vanity apart. ^ 

^ Laurens to John Laurens, October 16, 1777, in 5. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 6-7. 
This, written in the closest confidence to his son, proves Laurens's devotion 
to Washington, if such proof were needed. As to the justification of his 
admission that he is "afraid there may be some ground for some of these 
remarks," cf. the following fromDeKalb: "An officer at the moment of an 
engagement quits his regiment ; tells his commandant, — or does not tell him, 
as the case may be, — that he has business elsewhere ; and remains away in the 
neighboring town until the affair is over. Nobody says anything to him; 
he is paid his emoluments as before; and he will do the same thing again 
on the first opportunity. There are some who have acted on this plan 
ever since the war commenced." And further, says DeKalb, noting the 
same leniency and modesty in assuming authority which attracted Laurens's 
attention, "General Washington is the most valiant and upright man. I 
am convinced that he would do good if he took more upon himself in the 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 265 

These criticisms, so rife before Saratoga, mounted to their 
greatest height when that event threw Gates's success into 
contrast with Washington's recent defeats at Brandywine 
and Germantown. Even such men as John and Samuel 
Adams contributed powerfully to the hostility to Washing- 
ton by ridiculing in their dogmatic, intolerant style his 
"Fabian policy," calHng for "a short and violent war" 
and preaching that the worship of a man amounted to the 
sin of idolatry which would certainly call down the curse of 
Heaven. John Adams exclaimed on the repulse of the British 
from the forts in the Delaware, "Thank God the glory is not 
immediately due to the Commander-in-Chief, or idolatry and 
adulation would have been so excessive as to endanger our 
liberties"; and it is not creditable that almost his literal lan- 
guage was found suitable for his purpose by the author of one 
of the basest of the anonymous attacks upon Washington's 
character. ' 

The chief conspirators had been feeling their way for some 
months before circumstances enabled them to become aggres- 
sive. On learning, January 3, 1778, of Conway's letter which 
gave Washington the opportunity to drag the plotters into 
the light, Laurens wrote to his son John Laurens, "Some of 
our friends in Charles Town to whom I had communicated my 
sentiments freely, when they learn our present circumstances, 
will look back to my letters of August and September." As 
difficulties gathered about Washington, the plotters gave a 
wider currency to their charges of incompetency, and Generals 



future than he has in the past. " — ^Trevelyan, part iii., 328-9. Also note 
that "During the earliest years of the war from five to eight thousand 
American muskets had disappeared annually. Most of them were carried 
away as keepsakes by departing soldiers. It was a custom which would not 
have endeared itself to Frederick the Great; and, in the first twelve months 
of von Steuben's Inspectorship, fewer than twenty fire-arms were lost to 
the nation." — Trevelyan, part iii., 332, n., quoting from Fiske, Chapter x- 
Washington's shrinking from the appearance of usurpation, and the lack 
of effective assistance, which was better supplied in the spring of 1778, 
accounted for all that was justifiable in these criticisms. 
' Washington's Works, v., 499. 



266 Life of Henry Laurens 

Sullivan and Wayne even lent their influence.^ It was 
asserted that cowardice restrained Washington from driving 
Howe out of Philadelphia though he had two or three times the 
forces of the British, while the fact was that the whole of his 
available force did not equal what Howe could have sent out 
as a foraging party ; and Lovell even asserted that he marched 
his army up and down with no other purpose than to wear out 
their clothing, shoes, and stockings. The ambition of some, 
and the avarice of others to which Laurens alludes^ were now 
satisfied by a series of promotions and appointments. Gates 
and Mifflin were placed upon the Board of War, and Conway 
was elected against Washington's protest Inspector General of 
the army, independent of the Commander-in-Chief. ^ Laurens 
was disgusted at these schemes of selfish aggrandizement and 
deplored the injustice involved to deserving offlcers. When 
Conway was promoted, he wrote President Rutledge, nine 
Brigadiers presented a protest; when Lieutenant Colonel 
Wilkinson was made a Brigadier, "eight valuable and meritori- 
ous Colonels protested to Congress."'' He condemned just 
as strongly the unjust treatment of Arnold which was helping 
to drive that valuable officer into treason : 

A late determination in Congress relative to a good old servant Genl. 
Arnold will probably deprive us of that officer and may be attended by 
further ill effects in the army. The reasoning upon this occasion was 
disgusting. He was refused not because he was deficient in merit or that 
his demand was not well founded, but because he asked for it and that 
granting at such instance would be derogatory to the honour of Congress, s 

In the autumn of 1777 the scheme was pressed forward to 
force Washington by a series of interferences, shackles, vex- 
ations, and slights to resign his command. The cabal was 
carrying things with a high hand, in studied defiance to 
Washington's expressed opinions, which, says Laurens to his 
son, were "treated with so much indecent freedom and levity 

' Bancroft, v., 211. * See p. 268. 

3 Journals, ix., 1026; Bancroft, v., 212. 

4 Laurens to John Rutledge, Jan. 30, 1778. The same Wilkinson of such 
unsavory reputation in connection later with the Burr conspiracy, Spanish 
bribes, etc. s Laurens to President Rutledge, Aug. 22, 1777. 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 267 

as effected me exceedingly (and convinced me that your sus- 
picions of a baneful influence are not unfounded)." The 
incompetence of the Board of War and Commissary and Quar- 
termaster departments left wagon loads of clothing and pro- 
visions standing in the woods. The sufferings of the army 
at Valley Forge were due to these men and not, as is often 
supposed, to the poverty of the country. The strain upon 
Washington's patience and pride were all that their efforts 
to force disgrace and failure upon him could make it ; but from 
a knowledge of what his resignation would mean to the country 
he stuck to his task. 

The plot first broke from beneath ground by General Stir- 
ling's sending to Washington early in November, 1777, the 
quotation from Conway's letter to Gates, "Heaven has been 
determined to save your country, or a weak General and bad 
counsellors would have ruined it."^ Laurens learned of this 
through a letter from his son. Colonel John Laurens, written 
from Washington's headquarters January 3d. Conway, says 
John Laurens, "has weight with a certain party, formed 
against the present Commander-in-Chief, at the head of which 
is Genl. Mifflin. "^ Conway had been beforehand in reaching 
the President of Congress and had sought him while ill in bed 
to give his account of a transaction which he knew must soon 
come to his knowledge, but he had failed to make the impres- 
sion he desired. Laurens replied to his son's letter on the 8th : 

... If my memory does not deceive me, I hinted some time ago my dis- 
covery of party in our councils; the events which I dreaded and in many 
instances predicted are now coming to maturity. Some of our friends in 
Charles Town to whom I communicated my sentiments freely, when they 
learn our present circumstances will look back to my letters of August and 
September. I lament the particular unhappiness which you write of, but I 
do not confine my view to so narrow a circle ; our whole frame is shattered ; 
we are tottering, and without immediate exertions of wisdom and fortitude 
we must fall fiat down. Among the causes of this melancholy state are to 

' For a good narrative of the Conway Cabal, see Fiske's American Revo- 
lution, ii., 32-46. For the papers connected with it, see Washington's 
Works, v., 139, 483-518. 

* The letter is in the Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurent, 101-4. 



268 Life of Henry Laurens 

be found some men in whom your friend^ reposed an implicit confidence — 
I do not mean in the army. Did not I intimate to you some distress I was 
under in answering a letter soon after I was called to the Presidency be- 
cause I could not flatter? — the man alluded to, against whom I can have no 
prejudice, for we always in our short acquaintance eat and drank together 
in great cordiality, has contributed largely to the formation of party — 
his fawning mild address and obsequiousness, procured him toleration 
from great men on both sides, a sort of favoritism from some; his idleness, 
duplicity and criminal partialities in a certain circle laid the foundation of 
our present deplorable state. If your friend knew these things as well as 
I do, he would see as clearly as I do how his honest heart has been deceived. 
But enough of this till we meet. 

I am not quite sure of the fact, but I believe you have hit the pivot 
upon which the late mischiefs have turned. In order, however, to justify 
this idea, we must include characters of whom your friend entertains the 
most favorable sentiments. These taken together form a club whose 
demands upon the treasury and the war office never go ungratified. Can- 
dour obliges me to say that some of them respect your friend, and I am 
persuaded would not wittingly be concerned in a plot against him; but 
they ' ' want the honour to defend. " In all such junctoes there are prompters 
and actors, accommodators, candle snuffers, shifters of scenes and mutes. 

I have been and am uniformly opposed to all of them. The motives of 
your friend are pure, and he has nothing in view but the happiness of his 
country. That pivot and the rest of them, one in particular who stands 
high in the good graces of your friend, make patriotism the stalking horse 
to their private interests, and some of them, I am well informed, have 
already mounted to vast paper money estates. . . . Those among them who 
love money best must sacrifice peace offerings to the passion of their col- 
leagues whose ambition is most impetuous; and some there are whose ambi- 
tion and avarice must both be fed. All these in course of time wUl be exposed 
to public view; at present, they seem to triumph. God knows I feel no 
regret from private considerations; I never touch, I desire never to touch, 
public money and I have no ambition to gratify. I feel for my country — 
I feel for thirteen infant States. I have delivered my sentiments very freely 
against maladministration and pointed to that of "the one in particu- 
lar"; nor will I ever spare my honest opinion when it shall be proper to 
deliver it. To break the combination is a work not to be easily nor sud- 
denly performed; and you will perceive it is the more difficult from the 
texture which I have very fairly described. 

I will attend to all their movements and have set my face against every 
wicked attempt however specious ; but there is no other measure so Hkely 
to defeat the projects against your friend as a steady perseverance in duty 
of which he, if I may ]udge, from his conduct, is truly sensible. His 

' /. e., Washington. 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 269 

virtues are admitted and admired by all men, and if there be such a devil 
in the opposition as a rooted enemy to him, yet even his knowledge of 
mankind must dictate despair of degrading that worthy man without the 
procuration of his own consent and aid. These I trust he will never afford 
to him or them; in his would be involved the ruin of our cause; on the 
other hand his magnanimity, his patience, will save his country and con- 
found his enemies. Comparison I have often heard of the miscarriages and 
inactivity in the Southern with the successes in the Northern department; 
but I have never been at a loss for argiunents to convince reasonable men 
there was no ground for censure in one case, and that in the other we had 
been fortunate. — It would be useless to relate sttiff of this class; men of 
sense treat these things with contempt. 

The affair of G. C. which has so deeply affected you must be a little 
trouble — some to your friend — but it cannot long continue so, if the fact 
relative to the letter be exactly as you have been informed. Every man of 
honour throughout these States will feel himself wounded and will think 
and speak of the circumstance according to its demerit. While I lay ill 

of the gout, the G explained that transaction to me, but in much softer 

language than your quotation speaks. Indeed he denied there was such a 
sentence in his letter and averred he had spoken of your friend in terms of 
respect. However, there was something, in the manner of his representa- 
tion, which raised doubts in my mind, and the correspondence, even under 
favour of his own narrative, appeared to me to have been indiscreet and 
dangerous. . . . The visitor who came next to my bedside introduced the sub- 
ject which the G. had just dropped. — I very candidly said, according to the 
G's explanation there appeared no criminal intention, but there was some- 
thing about it which did not look well. — ^The G's late behavior towards 
your friend is, in my judgment, through the whole, very reprehensible; 
but the taunts and sarcasms contained under the 31st December are 
unbecoming his character and unpardonable. 

He adds a postscript saying he has just heard a discussion 
in "a large company" on Washington's recommendation in 
appointing a Quarter Master General : 

His opinion treated with so much indecent freedom and levity as affected 
me exceedingly and convinced me that your suspicions of a baneful influ. 
ence are not unfounded. 

Washington indeed had need of friends just then in a body 
where "his opinion," on a military matter at that, was 
"treated with so much indecent freedom and levity." Well 
might Laurens say to his son, your news "convinced me that 
your suspicions of a baneful influence are not unfounded." 



270 Life of Henry Laurens 

Well was it for the country that at a time when so many of the 
members of Congress were unworthy of their position and some 
even of the best were swayed by such dangerous jealousy of 
Washington that the Presidency was held by one of unblem- 
ished honor who appreciated adequately the one man with whom 
the salvation of the country rested; for there are few faults 
more dangerous, though there are many more wicked, than to 
be unable to recognize such a man. Laurens might well sup- 
pose that "to break the combination is a work not to be easily 
nor suddenly performed." He aimed straight at the means by 
which it was to be defeated: "Every man of honour through- 
out these States will feel himself wounded and will think and 
speak of the circumstance according to its demerit." His 
pledge, " I will attend to all their movements and have set my 
face against every wicked attempt however specious," was 
true of both his past and future conduct. The same day he 
said to John : 

I have been twice called to account by a stricken deer, and I suppose 
I stand open at this moment to a third attack by interrogatories. 

Judging from later incidents of which we have fuller informa- 
tion, Laurens must have been called upon to specify the per- 
sons meant in his denunciation of the plotters. 

Soon after the letter of January 3d from his son, President 
Laurens received for transmission to Gates Washington's 
letter of January 4th. Learning from this that Washington 
had not seen the original letter. Gates resorted to a clumsy 
tissue of falsehoods, only to be exposed with cold and merciless 
severity. The conspirators were not idle. An anonymous 
slanderous letter dated January 12th, immediately traced to 
Dr. Benjamin Rush, was sent to Governor Patrick Henry, who 
forwarded it immediately to Washington. 

January 26th as Laurens sat in the President's chair, a 
member handed him a letter directed to Congress, with the 
remark that it had been picked up upon the stairs, the object 
evidently being to betray him into reading it out before dis- 
covering its nature. But the prudent presiding officer finding 
it to be an anonymous slander against the Commander-in- 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 271 

Chief, stuffed it into his pocket with the remark to the house 
"that it was an anonymous production containing stuff which 
I must be content with as perquisites of office — that the hearth 
was the proper depository for such records."^ Without 
showing it to anyone, he forwarded it the next day to Wash- 
ington. The friends of John Adams have the mortification 
of seeing this elaborate paper concluded with phrases taken 
from the plentiful storehouse of that statesman's unreasonable 
and petulant criticism. Washington wrote Laurens that he 
could not "sufficiently express the obligation I feel to you, for 
your friendship and politeness upon an occasion in which I am 
so deeply interested," expressed warmly his "grateful sense 
of the favorable disposition you have manifested to me in this 
affair, " and concluded with the assurance of his "real esteem 
and regard."^ 

Laurens continued on the alert, and it is to him that we owe 
an exact quotation from one of Conway's letters which, he 
says, though not containing the exact words already pubHc, 
"yet in substance it contained that and ten times more." 
When shown the letter by Roberdeau, he copied out the follow- 
ing passage, which he gave to Washington's aide. Major Fitz- 
gerald, with sentiments, says Major Fitzgerald, which " were 
exceedingly just, and delivered with the greatest candor:"^ 

What a pity there is but one Gates ! But the more I see of this army, the 
less I think it fit for general action under its present chiefs and actual dis- 

' Laurens to Washington, Jan. 27, 1778, in MS. letters to Washington in 
Lib. of Cong., where also is the anonymous letter. The latter was dated 
Jan. 17, 1778, and addressed on the cover: "To the Honble the President 
of Congress and every Member thereof." On the second cover: "The 
Honble Henry Laurens, Esq., Presidt of Congress." After three large 
closely written pages of criticism it concludes: " That the people of America 
have been guUty of Idolatry by making a man their god — and that the 
God of Heaven and Earth wiU convince them by wofull experience that he 
is only a man. 

"That no good may be expected from the standing army untU Baal and 
his worshipers are banished from the camp. " 

2 Washington's Works, v., 504. Cf. Washington's expressing to Laurens, 
Nov. 14, 1778, "the truest attachment and most perfect confidence." 

^ Ibid., -v., $10-11. 



2^2 Life of Henry Laurens 

cipline. I speak to you sincerely and freely, and wish I could seirve under 
you. 

A part of the scheme was to attach Lafayette to the con- 
spirators and so gain the influence of the French court and 
officers, which would be so valuable after the expected French 
alliance. A hair-brained plan was pressed through Congress 
without even consulting Washington for a winter expedition 
against Canada and Lafayette was elected, January 23d, as its 
leader. Such an indignity to the Commander-in-Chief shows 
how strongly the tide of opposition was still running. Laurens 
disapproved, notwithstanding his and his son's close personal 
friendship with Lafayette; but only himself and three others 
were found to oppose what he called "that indigested romantic 
scheme." He blamed both Congress and the Board of War 
for their slur upon Washington. "Ignorance might perhaps 
have accounted for the conduct of the former, although they 
were amply warned against the unjustifiable step." It 
is to be noticed that he neither excuses the Board of War, 
approves of their policy, nor entertains of them his former high 
expectations. In the dark moves and motives with which he 
was surrounded he could neither be sure of sincerity in the 
promoters nor yet of their having clandestine aims ; for there 
is evident uneasiness in his message to John two days after 
Lafayette's election: "There can be nothing else intended but 
honour to the Marquis & benefit to the public. General 
Conway is voted second in command & General Starke third. " ^ 

Lafayette properly resented the affront to Washington 
and compelled Congress reluctantly to make amends. His 
unplanned and unprovided expedition had not progressed far 
when he reaHzed the ridictdous spectacle he was making. 
His letters to Laurens during the incident are filled with dis- 
gust, shame, and the dread of being laughed at.^ The almost 
unbelievable bungHng of the promoters compelled Lafayette 
to pay the most trifling expenses out of his own pocket though, 

' Laurens to John Rutledge, Jan. 30 and March n, 1778, and to John 
Laurens, Jan. 25, 1778, in S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 48-9. 
^ Letters in S. C. Hist. Mag. during 1906-7. 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 273 

he wrote, "I can't help laying (sic) in telling them that it is 
given by Congress to me," when as a matter of fact he was 
borrowing to the Hmit of his private credit . Laurens promptly 
lent him $6000 of his own funds on urgent appeal. ^ 

The intrigue failed completely ; the foolhardy expedition was 
abandoned, and Lafayette was glad enough to get back to 
Washington's headquarters. 

Early in 1778 the conspirators began to feel the public 
scorn which greeted the revelation of their schemes. One 
after another, from Gates down, they hastened to disclaim 
their connection. The reaction of public feeling left Washing- 
ton more strongly entrenched in the confidence and affection 
of the people than he had been when John Adams complained 
of "idolatry and adulation"; but it did not, as he had pre- 
dicted, "endanger our liberties," but rather gave them a 
new support. The reputation of Congress, already reduced, 
suffered irreparably from the baseness of some of its members 
and the facility with which the majority had lent themselves 
to their wicked and perilous schemes. No more pronounced 
testimony to this decline and no more urgent cry for better- 
ment can be found than in the words of Henry Laurens during 
the next two years. 

The conspiracy being broken, Laurens did all in his power 
for the good of the service to heal the breach between Wash- 
ington and Gates ;^ but that "calm, wise, just, and single- 
minded man" stood in need of no one's aid, however well 
meant, to teach him how to regard his enemy in future or to 
remind him how he should suppress his personal grievance 
for the public interest. I do not discover that Laurens's 
attitude towards Gates went any further than this. The 
following extract from a letter of April 9, 1778, to John Laurens 
indicates, however, that he, like most Americans at the time, 
still entertained a better opinion of Gates than that person 
merited : 

I Lafayette to Laurens, Jan., 1778, Feb. 23, 1778, and March 20, 1778, 
S. C. Hist. Mag., vii., 181-2, and viii., 5 and 18; Laurens to Lafayette, 
March 6, 1778, in transcripts in Carnegie Inst, iov Letters from Members of 
the Continental Congress. = Laurens to Motte, Jan. 26, 1778. 



274 Life of Henry Laurens 

In conversation with General Gates, without seeking on my side, I 
discovered an inclination on his part to be upon friendly terms with our 
great and good general. It can not be doubted that there is the same dis- 
position upon the other side. What would I not give to see a perfect and 
happy reconciliation? In talking of General Conway's letter, which has 
been circulating, as formerly intimated, and of which General Gates 
declared his ignorance and disapprobation, I took occasion to say if Gen- 
eral Conway pretends sincerity in his late parallel between the great F. 
[Fabius] and the great W., he has, taking this letter into view, been guilty 
of the greatest hypocrisy; if not, he is chargeable with the guilt of an 
unprovoked sarcasm. The General (Gates) acquiesced in that statement, 
and added such hints as convinced me he thought lightly of Conway. 
Shall such a man separate friends and keep them asunder? It must not be. ' 

Of Conway Laurens had previously entertained a high 
opinion.^ That General, irritated at Congress, as a grand 
bluff tendered his resignation in a letter of April 22 d; but 
Congress had learned something of ultimate values, and to his 
chagrin it was accepted by a vote of 8 to i .^ When he vainly 
sought reinstatement Laurens opposed, considering that "his 
conduct respecting Gen. Washington is criminal and unpardon- 
able. " But this was not enough for "this combination of 
weakness and impudence," as Laurens calls him. He came 
to Congress and losing his temper, accused Laurens in his own 
house before his secretary with making a private letter public — 
a charge for which he was obliged to apologize upon Laurens's 
immediately producing his plainly pubhc communication. 
Later he returned in softened mood. This morning, Laurens 
wrote to his son, 

I had occasion to wish a little hypocrisy had been thrown into my frame. 
In came Gen. Conway with a letter in his hand and in an obsequious address 
diflferent from that of yesterday asked me if I were sending letters to camp. 
I decently repUed in the affirmative, desiring him to put his upon the table; 
it should be forwarded with other dispatches immediately. So far duty in 
office demanded good manners on my part. He then asked in a low and 
soft tone, "Did not the Marquis de Lafayette, Mr. President, write you in 

'MS. in Dreer Collection, Philadelphia, quoted in Wharton, i., 281. 
The words "Fabius" in brackets and "Gates" in parenthesis are so in 
Wharton, I prestune having been inserted by him. 

* Laurens to Motte, Jan. 26-30, 1778. 

3 Laurens to Lowndes, May i, 1778. 



The Conway Cabal, 1777-78 275 

my behalf? " and was proceeding to further conversation. I felt the injury- 
he had attempted, and instantly repKed, "I have really forgot, Gen. Con- 
way, and I must beg, sir, you will excuse me." ' 

The Cabal was dead, but the country had none the less 
fallen on evil days. Laurens's declaration that our salvation 
lay in the fact that the enemy "keeps pace with us in pro- 
fusion, mismanagement and family discord" continued to be 
lamentably true, and the "resurrection of able men" from the 
tomb of a dead patriotism for which he cried was slow in 
coming. 

^Laurens to John Laurens, June 5, 1778. See also his fuller account 
written to Lafayette the same day. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE FRENCH ALLIANCE, ETC., 1 778 

French Alliance — Finances — Denunciation of Corruption — Half Pay Ques- 
tion — British Peace Commission — Misunderstanding with Gadsden — 
Resignation as President Declined a Second Time. 

LAURENS, like Washington and all the wiser leaders, 
recognized that the help of France, valuable as it was, 
sprung from hatred of England rather than love for America, 
and that our enthusiasm should accordingly be tempered with 
caution. The bitter feelings which had characterized all the 
colonies towards France, especially since the last war, were 
slow to yield; and nothing, says Wharton, better measures 
the length to which alienation from the mother country had 
gone than the willingness to form an alliance with the ancient 
common enemy. We find Laurens immediately before the 
treaty speaking of the French as "artful specious half friends " 
who wished to help the United States only so far as they could 
thereby help France, towards whom we were in peril of becom- 
ing dangerously subservient on account of entering so deeply 
into their debt. France, he continues, has 

played off our commissioners and ambassadors like puppets. . . . We 
have the strongest proofs of French perfidy, as well as of British im- 
becility and American credulity and puppetism.' And yet, sir, we 
are dreaming on, trusting as it were to Providence to give us this 
day our daily bread of brown paper, drawing from France as an exhaustless 
spring, although she has told us in so many words "it is impossible to lend 

' It is hardly necessary to remark that Laurens here as so often in his 
private correspondence allows himself very impatient and extravagant 
expressions. 

276 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 2^"] 

us two millions sterling. "... It is not necessary that we should break with 
France. We might make use of her. I am sure it may be done with good 
effect; but, as I have already intimated, it seems as if every man fit for these 
great purposes had married a wife and staid to prove her. Sir, I see and 
I lament, but I can do nothing more than a kind of negative good. . . . 
If there be not speedily a resurrection of able men and of that virtue which 
I thought had been genuine in 1775, we are gone. We shall undo ourselves. 
We must flee to the mountains; but woe to them who have been Governors 
and Presidents who have given orders for borrowing the King's gtmpowder' 
and suspending the embarkation of his favorite warrior.^ 

Despite the humorous dash, he felt very deeply the dangers 
of the situation. To Isaac Motte he wrote, January 26-30, 
1778, that Congress was often reduced to fifteen members — 
sometimes barely nine States represented; not men enough 
for the bare drudgery of committees : N 

but at present we want genius, insight, foresight, fortitude and all the 
virtues and powers of the human mind. O shameful, shameless sons of 
liberty, versatile, boasting Americans. Ye have bought yokes of oxen and 
married wives, ye stay to prove them. Trifle a little longer, and ye and 
your wives go graze with those oxen which once had been your property, s 

The treaties of commerce and alliance, signed February 6, 
1778, were too valuable not to be hailed with delight by the 
most cautious. Laurens had predicted as early as February, 
1776, that if the war continued an alliance would be made with 
France.'' He expressed his "most hearty congratulations 
upon the promising event," notwithstanding his objections to 
certain commercial advantages granted to France,^ and the 
absence of any guarantee that the United States should not be 
prevented from acquiring Florida and the Bahamas. He 
suspected as soon as the treaties were read that Spain was to 
get Florida, but he was ridiculed; nevertheless it soon began 
to be apparent that he was right. 

' In South Carolina in 1775. See supra. 

' Laurens to Gov. William Livingston, Jan. 27, 1778. 

3 Laurens to Isaac Motte, Jan. 26-30, 1778. 

4 Collections of S. C. Hist. Soc, i., 32, n. 

s Laurens to Gervais, May 3, 1778, to John Laurens, May 3, 1778, and to 
John Rutledge, May 4, 1778. 



278 Life of Henry Laurens 

I am afraid our present commissioners are not apprized of the immense 
value to our whole Union of St. Augustine and Bahama, and that too many 
of us here view the matter in the light of partial benefit.^ 

As a merchant, Laurens knew well the value of the trade to 
the south and was anxious that we should acquire the posses- 
sions in question. His protest strikes the keynote of his 
statesmanship: aversion to schemes of " partial benefit " and 
his insistence upon a comprehensive system defending every 
American interest without regard to sectionalism. We shall 
find him even more strongly insisting upon a common ad- 
vantage of the Union at the other geographical extremity in 
the matter of the New Foundland fisheries, in which some of 
his Southern associates in Congress were unable to appreciate 
his position. 

The glittering temptation of Canadian conquest offered 
Lafayette by the Gates-Conway conspirators in January, 1778, 
was not obliterated from his imagination by the enforced 
abandonment of the expedition at that time. The formal 
alliance with his own country stirred his imagination, and later 
in the year on his own motion he broached the measure in a 
somewhat different form. Divisions of a French and Amer- 
ican army cooperating from three directions were to unite in a 
grand campaign, which, he believed, could not but succeed. 
Congress favored the plan and referred it to Washington for his 
opinion. The General advised against it as impracticable and 
it was never undertaken. In a private letter to Laurens^ 
he stated an objection which weighed heavily with him, but 
which it was impossible to express in an official paper. It 
impressed him, he said, as raising some of the most serious 
questions Congress had ever had to decide. The insurmount- 
able objection was that France might on "specious pretences" 
decide to hold Canada for herself: 

Hatred of England may carry some into an excess of confidence in France. 
. . . But it is a maxim founded on the vmiversal experience of mankind , 

' Laurens to Gov. Wm. Livingston, Aug. 21, 1778. 

" November 14, 1778; in Washington's Works, vi., 106-10. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 279 

that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; 
and no prudent statesman or poUtician wUl venture to depart from it. 

Even though France should begin with "the purest inten- 
tions," circumstances may cause her to "alter her view." 
He suspected that the court of France was speaking through 
Lafayette in order to put its schemes "into this artful dress, " 
and concluded with the wish for us, 

as much as possible, to avoid giving a foreign power new claims of merit for 
services performed for the United States, and would ask no assistance that 
is not indispensable. 

Washington was mistaken, as the French archives prove, 
as to the intention of that court. France had definitely 
renounced Canada in 1763 and adopted as her American 
policy enlarging her West Indian dominions and recovering 
Louisiana.^ On this point Laurens's surmises proved more 
correct than Washington's, though as to proper action for 
Congress their opinions were alike both in substance and the 
tenacity with which they were held. As Laurens never went 
into debt in his private business, so he dreaded the effects of a 
public debt. He feared that a large financial obligation to 
France might lead to her seizing ports or perhaps Canada, or 
deserting us entirely if England would pay her what we owed. 
These ideas are developed in his answer to Washington, 
November 20th : 

I believe, and upon good grotmds, the scheme for an expedition into 
Canada in concert with the arms of France, originated in the breast of the 
Marquis de Lafayette, encouraged probably by conferences with Count 
d'Estaing, and I also believe it to be the offspring of the purest motives, so 
far as respects that origin ; but this is not sufficient to engage my concurrence 
in a measure big with eventual mischiefs. As deeply as my very limited 
time and faculties had suffered me to penetrate, I had often contemplated 
our delicate connection with France; and although it is painful to talk of 

' Cf. Prof. F. J. Turner's "Policy of France towards the Mississippi 
Valley in the Period of Washington and Adams," in American Hist. Review, 
X., 249 (January, 1905). Very much the same, though not so full, is an 
article by the same author in the Atlantic Monthly, 93, 676, and 807 (May 
and June, 1904). 



28o Life of Henry Laurens 

one's own foresight, I had viewed and foretold fifteen months ago the 
humiliating state, to which our embryo independence would be reduced by 
courting from that nation the loan of more money, than should be actually 
necessary for the support of the army and of our unfortunate navy. 

I was one of the six unsuccessful opponents of the resolution for borrowing 
money from France for paying the interest on our loan-office certificates. 
We have m this single article plunged the Union into a vast amotmt of debt; 
and from neglecting to exert our very small abilities, or even to show a lead- 
ing disposition to cancel any part of the former demand against us, our bUls 
for that interest are now floating in imminent danger of dishonor and dis- 
grace. FuUy persuaded of the true value of national honor, I anxiously 
wished to support our own by a propriety and consistency of conduct ; and 
I dreaded the consequences of subjecting our happiness to the disposal of a 
powerful creditor, who might on very specious grounds interpret national 
honor to our destruction. I warned my friends against the danger of 
mortgaging these States to foreign powers. Every million of livres you 
borrow implies a pledge of your lands; and it is optional with your creditor 
to be paid at the bank of England with an exorbitant premium, or to 
collect the money due to him in any of your ports, and according to his 
own mode, whenever national interest shall require the support of pretended 
national honor. 

Hence your Excellency will perceive what were my feelings, when the 
propositions for subduing Canada, by the aid of a French fleet and army, 
were broached to me. I demurred exceedingly to the Marquis's scheme, 
and expressed some doubts of the concurrence of Congress. This was 
going as far as I dared consistently with my office, or considering him a 
gentleman of equal honor and tenacity. I trusted the issue of his applica- 
tion to the sagacity of Congress. The business was referred to a committee, 
who conferred with the Marquis. Their report was framed agreeably to his 
wishes, but the House very prudently determined to consult the Com- 
mander-in-Chief previously to a final determination; and, although your 
Excellency's observations are committed, I am much mistaken if every 
member of Congress is not decided in his opinion in favor of them. 

He continues with a declaration against dissipating energy 
or accumulating debt by attempts at foreign conquest in 
Canada, East Florida, or any other region.^ 

Another danger presented itself from the French alliance — 
the danger of our sinking into a false security instead of standing 
erect in our own strength and self-reliance. Accordingly, while 
he rejoiced in the success of the French arms, he was con- 
strained to write: 

' Washington's Works, vi., no-12, note. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 281 

I am almost tempted to wish they had not happened. These fortunate 
circumstances will lull us to sleep again, and whtle our ally is gaining honor, 
aggrandizement and the highest national advantages we shall be sinking 
into a state little better than tributary and dependent — ^be this as it may, 
the world will ever honor by acknowledging the virtues of the man who from 
my inmost soul I believe keeps us at this moment from crumbling. ' 

Laurens's reluctance to substitute loans froni France for 
reliance upon our own resources leads to a consideration of his 
position upon the finances in general. During his whole 
term his financial policy was dominated by the same ideas we 
have just heard him express touching our relations to France : 
self-reliance and self-exertion. Barely a month after entering 
Congress he laid down his program of a reasonable domestic 
loan and rigid economy in opposition to further paper issues 
and loans from France. Particularly he opposed as the worst 

' Laurens to Washington in MS. Letters to Washington in Lib. of Cong. 
The greater part of this letter is printed in Washington's Works, vi., 1 10-12, 
note. Another illustration of Laurens's abhorrence of borrowing unless 
absolutely necessary is found in a letter to James Duane, April 7, 1778, 
protesting against the action of Congress that very morning in " contracting 
an enormous debt to a crafty and powerful foreign State. " The reference 
is to the contract with Beaumarchais under the name of "Roderique Hor- 
talez & Co. , " allowing us to draw upon that firm for large amounts. Congress 
in doubt as to whether Hortalez — a name used as a screen by the French 
government — was a private party or really the French government, sus- 
pended the contract until hearing from Vergennes on this point. Vergennes, 
with barely formal regard for the truth, replied that Hortalez & Co. were 
private parties and that the King had furnished nothing to the Americans. 
Laurens paid no regard to this fiction by which France had been seeking to 
conceal her assistance. Beaumarchais did, however, in addition to what 
he received from the French government to be sent to America as pur- 
chases from Hortalez & Co., advance largely from his own means, only a 
part of which, sad to relate, due largely to the pseudonym and consequent 
confusion involved in the affair, he or his heirs ever received back from the 
American government towards the very existence of which he had so 
materially contributed. For the discussion of the Hortalez affair, see 
Wharton, i., 374-86. 

Laurens, as perhaps all other Congressmen, was mystified as to the true 
character of Hortalez & Co., so much so as to speak of him as "in all 
appearances a partner of Mr. Deane's. " He was dissatisfied with the con- 
fusion in conducting the business — a confusion which was responsible for the 
repudiation of a large part of the debt due Beaumarchais and his heirs. 



282 Life of Henry Laurens 

possible policy drawing upon France for payment of interest 
on the public debt. 

Wisdom dictates to us to draw on France for no more money than is 
absolutely necessary to pay for articles essential to our defensive war — that 
we should contract our expenses, public and private — recommend taxation 
in each Colony — ^borrow at home upon the best terms — clear the States of 
enemies — sell vacant and forfeited estates — encourage manufactures — 
strive more ardently to improve our marine force and do a thousand other 
things which we know to be necessary which we ought immediately to 
engage in and which we would do, if luxury and avarice were discounte- 
nanced and banished. If we have not virtue enough to save ourselves, easy 
access to the treasury of France will only hasten our ruin.^ 

A very excellent looking program, but how practicable? 
In the winter and spring of 1778 he sounded Congressmen upon 
the following plan for improvement, but found little response:^ 
The wealthy were to make a sterling loan and by their sacri- 
fice and faith thus manifested to animate those less fortunate 
to lend according to their means and inspire the common people 
to enlist in the army, where officers and men of means ought 
to give their services free. He estimated that five hundred 
men might be found who could advance almost £3,000,000 
sterling and seemed to be ready himself to put in £5000 or 
£10,000 sterling. 3 The paper money was then to be retired. 
He met with so little encouragement, however, as to doubt the 
sincerity of professing patriots in the cause. "Can I then 
believe that men are in earnest? Yes, I see they are in earnest 
to plunder the common stock. " 

Here, then, we have a definite, businesslike program, based 
upon the specie ability of the wealthy, the retirement of 
continental paper money, and the common patriotism of all. 
A most excellent sounding plan. What, then, prevented its 

'Laurens to Gervais, Sept. 5-9, 1777. Cf., also, Laurens to Rutledge, 
Aug. 19, 1777, and to Mcintosh, Sept. i, 1777. 

He appears to have condemned the lottery as a means of raising 
revenue. Laurens to Gervais, Oct. 18, 1777. 

^ Laurens to John Laurens, March 15, 1778, in S. C. Hist. Mag.,vi., 105. 

3 The passage is not clear whether he was able actually to do this. See 
below. 



The French AlHance, Etc., 1778 283 

adoption? The lack of the one thing needful during the entire 
war : a deep and steady national patriotism in the great body 
of the people — a splendid fruitage which it was useless to hope 
for at that stage of our development. That failing, what was 
the earnest patriot to do except cry aloud for "men of knowl- 
edge, virtue and spirit, adequate to the labor of stemming 
the torrent," and exhort the people to revive "the spirit of pa- 
triotism which flashed in 1775?" And that failing, what re- 
mained except to lean as prudently as possible upon the rot- 
ten staff of brown paper and the dangerous arm of French 
credit? 

Laurens's practical policy after the failure of his proposal 
exhibits the contradictions of a man seeking to do the best he 
can from month to month under a system which he disap- 
proves but cannot escape. He bitterly complained that the 
States would not do their duty, and in the belief, unhappily 
too well grounded, that no improvement in that regard could 
be expected, he refused to rely upon that source when Congress 
voted "to stop the press" and make requisitions for the next 
year's expenses; he opposed more loans from France as 
endangering our freedom of action, or even our independence, 
but he abated nothing of his dissatisfaction with the flood of 
paper mone3^ The number of his papers on the subject shows 
how steady was his interest ; but it was hard to hope that any 
satisfactory plan would be adopted. In the outline for a 
speech in the latter part of 1779 proposals for a well-rounded 
system are less prominent than worry over depreciation, the 
history of which he outlines as follows : 

"To 1777. Virtuous citizens. 

" To March, 1778. Citizens tempted by prospect of gain. 

" To June, 1779. First excess of circulating paper." 

The people distrusted loan office certificates because of doubt as to the 
success of foreign loans. 

" The most pernicious act of all — the forcing of loans by calling in the 
emissions of April, 1778, and May, 1778 — not the act, but the manner of 
enforcing it. Loss of confidence and almost an annihilation of credit." 
In Holland the people would have torn open the doors "and Dewitted the 
projectors and supporters of the iniquitous and equally unnecessary 
measure." 



284 Life of Henry Laurens 

Luxury, forestalling, and extravagance help accoimt for the rise of 
prices. ^ 

AU which may be said to arrive at nowhere. Laurens, 
like later critics, found it a great deal easier to explode de- 
nunciations at the bad state of affairs than to suggest any 
scheme of improvement which at that time and place stood 
the slightest chance of adoption. He was a first-class business 
man and a statesman of excellent ideas, and if he had been 
an absolute monarch backed by power to compel obedience, 
doubtless his wise orders would have produced some results; 
but neither he nor Pitt nor Robert Morris nor Alexander 
Hamilton in his prime could have made much improvement 
in the chaos out of which the destined cosmos was still far 
from emerging. 

Laurens's impatience with the deranged finances accounts 
for much of the denunciation which he launches at Congress 
and its employees. He wrote. May i, 1778, to Rawlins 
Lowndes : 

Had we had men on this spot competent to the arrangement of our 
treasury and finances, men of knowledge, virtue and spirit, adequate to the 
labor of stemming the torrent of peculation which has overwhelmed us with 
brown paper dollars, we should have less cause to regret the loss of four 
frigates. These are gone; I trust, and devoutly pray, the eyes of these 
slumbering States may be opened and wise measures adopted for averting 
the loss of their independence. 

When he uttered this cry for "men on this spot competent to 
the arrangement of our treasury and finances," twenty-four 
dollars of continental money were necessary to equal one 
dollar in specie. The value held up to about this until the 
autumn of 1779, when it rapidly declined. November 17, 1779, 
it was 383/^ to i.^ Yet with the poor stuff so badly spoiled, 
the complainer whose stomach had so long rebelled against 
"our daily bread of brown paper dollars " was obliged, when he 

' Laurens Papers, ii., in His. Soc. Penn. MSS. Parts not in quotations 
in this passage are condensed. 

' Dewey's Financial History of the United States, 39. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 285 

saw the manna about to cease to fall, to cry out for fear of 
starvation : 

A heavy weight is on my mind from a consideration of the wretched state 
of our paper currency. Congress determined a fortnight since to make 
no emissions beyond 200 million dollars. We are verging fast to that 
amount, yet not one solid step trodden in the road of future ways and means 
for replenishing our treasury and carrying on the war. We have, in my 
humble opinion, inverted the order of things, made that an harbinger which 
in wisdom ought to have been secondary. — Will the chapter of accidents 
again relieve us? God only knows. ' 

On September i, 1779, Congress resolved that it would not 
issue over $200,000,000 of paper money. The promoters of 
this measure determined to rely upon loans and requisitions. 
Only Laurens, Jay, and three others voted against the motion. 
Washington was of their opinion also, but reconciled himself 
to the measure on the supposition that there was good rea- 
son to expect other income; but this appearing uncertain, 
the situation appeared to him "not a little alarming." He 
lamented : 

A virtuous exertion in the States respectively, and in the individuals of 
each State, may effect a great deal. But, alas! virtue and patriotism are 
almost extinct! Stockjobbing, speculation, engrossing, seem to be the 
great business of the day and of the multitude, whilst a virtuous few struggle, 
lament and suffer in silence, though I hope not in vain.^ 

We are not to suppose that either Washington, Laurens, or 
Jay loved paper money ; but they all had been forced to con- 
sider it vain to rely upon the States. The $200,000,000 limit 
of paper was reached by November 29, 1779, and the system 
of requisitions proved lamentably unproductive.^ 

' Laurens to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, Sept. 26, 1779. 

* Washington's Works, vi., 397. 

3 Journals, xv., 1325. The degree of reliabiUty of requisitions is shown 
by the following from Sumner's Financier and Finances of the Revolution, 
ii., 55: "In a communication to Congress, August i, 1783, Morris stated 
that the States had paid on the requisition of 1782 as foUows: South Car- 
olina, the whole, by means of supplies to the troops serving there; Rhode 
Island, nearly a quarter; Pennsylvania, above a fifth; Connecticut and 
New Jersey, each about a seventh; Massachusetts, about an eighth; Vir- 
ginia, about a twelfth; New York and Maryland, each about a twentieth; 
New Hampshire, about one-one htmdred and twenty-first; North Carolina, 



286 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens has been criticized^ because "he permitted himself 
to write letters attacking the revolutionary machinery, which, 
intercepted by the British and published, were not without 
mischievous results." Washington himself and many others 
wrote letters of this kind which, if intercepted, would have 
injured the cause more than any Laurens ever wrote. ^ Laurens 
was unfortunate in having one letter in particular fall into the 
hands of the enemy. He was one of the purest and most 
patriotic public men of the period; in his view of public 
questions the moral element always played a large part. 
Patient in the performance of his own tasks, however irksome, 
he was exacting towards others and intolerant of their incapac- 
ity or low moral standards. With all this he was an unusually 
composed man. In all his correspondence there occurs noth- 
ing save the death of wife or children which evokes such out- 
bursts of passionate feeling as the lack of patriotism in the dark 
days of the Revolution. Doubtless his feelings sometimes 
hurried him into expressions which exceeded justice and mis- 
represented his own calm views, and we must remember that 
we are reading unguarded private letters. If there was a 
tithe of the dishonesty over which he mourns in and near 
Congress, the conditions were sad indeed. To Isaac Motte he 
wrote, January 26, 1778: 

In England there was one Lord Holland; here in these virtuous States 
we have an hundred Foxess who hold unaccounted millions and who have 

Delaware and Georgia, nothing at all." Dewey states (p. 45) that the 
four requisitions between November 2, 1777, and October 6, 1779, calling 
for $95,000,000 in paper brought in $54,667,000; and that the three specie 
requisitions during 1780-1 amounting to $10,642,988 brought in $1,592,222, 
and that the system "proved of little importance until the war was over." 

'Wharton, i., 581. 

^ E. g., see Washington's Works, vi., 91 and 151. His letter of Dec. 
30, 1778, to Benjamin Harrison employs some phrases almost identical 
with those of Laurens's of August 27, 1778. The painful fact is that these 
men could not truthfully describe the situation of the country without using 
severe phrases. 

3 Henry Fox (created first Lord Holland), father of Charles James Fox, 
amassed a forttme as Paymaster of the Forces and died one of the most 
seductive, corrupt, and generally hated poUticians of his time. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 287 

been taught that Congress have not power to call them to account. O 
Liberty! O Virtue! O my country! upon the base prostitution of these 
sacred names knaves and fools are building enormous estates, sapping the 
foundations of liberty, virtue and their country, and taxing the honest and 
undesigning a thousand fold more than the British Parhament would or 
could have done. My dear Colonel, believe me, this is no rhapsody, no 
indulgence of fancy. I speak the truth and daily discourse, truth which all 
acknowledge and pretend to lament, but none wiU heartUy join to amend. 
I fear too many are in truth concerned by a brother, a son or a friend, and 
some have been secretly engaged. ' 

The incompetence of many Congressmen and the indiffer- 
ence of the States tried him only less than corruption. 

What complaints [he exclaimed to John Laurens] has your General been 
making for many months past — without the least good effect — how have 
delinquents not only been skreened — but held up in triumph & can you 
prevail on me to remain longer among such people — No — I will rather insist 
on your abandoning them — but indeed, there, are sometimes my hopes, 
where you are — A species of patriotism may at length spring forth from the 
Army and so far save this Country as to drive out the Enemy & punish 
sluggish torpid friends.' 

About February, 1778, he determined to return home as 
soon as he could obtain permission to attend to his long neg- 
lected private affairs. South Carolina granted his request, but 
at the same time pleaded that he remain in Congress by elect- 
ing him for a new term. This and the crisis in public affairs 
determined him to remain at his post, despite the fact that he 
"can do only a kind of negative good. "^ 

His warnings fill his letters during the spring of 1778. To 
their deficiency of representation, he wrote Lowndes, May i , 
1778, were due "all this danger and a hundred other evils." 
As he thinks of the energy of John Adams, he longs to see him 

1 To see how little singular Laurens was, cf. the following from a copy of a 
letter of Simeon Deane to his brother Silas in the Laurens MSS. in the S. C. 
Hist. Soc. collections: 

' ' But depend upon it, much of this country is really and radically altered. 
Patriotism, pubhc spirit, the common cause, &c., are quite old stories, while 
engrossing, jockeying, electioneering are aU in high vogue. In short, 
government is nearly annihilated, as well as decency." 

2 Laurens to John Laurens, March, 1778, in S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 104. 

3 Laurens to Gov. William Livingston, Feb. 5, 1778. 



288 Life of Henry Laurens 

there again. He finds fault not only with the spare numbers, 
but with the inexperience of Congress, as, e. g., in discussing 
commercial treaties with Denmark, Russia, Spain, Holland, 
and Sweden : 

Two whole days the subject has been upon the anvil and very laboriously 
hammered. I have had the presumption to wish myself on the floor once 
or twice, from an opinion that even the httle commercial knowledge I am 
possessed of might have struck Ught — there is not a merchant present. ' 

But a better day was about to dawn. During the spring 
and summer of 1778 Congress was considerably strengthened. 
May 2ist Samuel Adams returned from an absence of over six 
months, which, under the Massachusetts rule requiring three 
delegates, had deprived the State of her vote; Gouvemeur 
Morris took his seat from New York January 20, 1778; Roger 
Sherman returned April 25th after a long absence. All the 
States, even Delaware at last, sent representatives; Laurens, 
who since the beginning of November, 1777, had been the sole 
attendant from his State, was reenforced March 30th by the 
brilliant young William Henry Drayton, April 13th by Richard 
Hutson, April 22d by John Matthews, and June 6th by Thomas 
Heyward. Laurens cheered up a bit after this and even 
thought that peace might come within a year.^ But things 
were still bad enough, even though enlivened by a flash of 
humor : 

1 remember to have heard somewhere of a Chief Justice recommending to 
a Grand Jury to present the King ; permit me to ask my countrymen if it 
would be a greater outrage to present their attorneys (I am in earnest, Sir) 
for neglect of duty. . . . 

Three hours of this morning passed in debate whether Gov. Franklin 
shotdd be given in exchange for Gov. McKinly; the previous question by 
aye and nay; An oration by S. C., Esq., ^ on the improvement of time, with 
life and character of Elizabeth and IMary Queen of Scots ; the comparative 
beauty of black eyes and blue eyes; adjourned. Seldom a question upon 
a million of dollars ; seldom an unquestionable demand for an hundred. ^ 

' Laurens to John Rutledge, Jtme 3, 1778. 

2 Laurens to John Burnett, July 24, 1778. 

3 This shows a new side of Samuel Chase, the future Justice of the 
United States Supreme Court. 

4 Laurens to Rawlins Lowndes, Aug. 11, 1778. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 289 

It was at this time that Laurens wrote his famous letter of 
August 27, 1778, to Governor John Houston of Georgia which, 
by reason of being found among the Governor's papers in the 
conquest of Georgia^ and published by the British, placed him 
in an unpleasant position : 

I am constrained to say that unless the several States will keep their 
representation in Congress filled by men of competent ability, unshaken 
integrity and unremitting diligence; a plan which I very much fear is laid 
for the subduction of our Confederate Independence will, by the operations 
of masked enemies, be completely executed;^ so far, I mean, as relates to all 
the sea-coast, and possibly to the present generation. Were I to unfold to 
you, sir, scenes of venality, peculation and fraud which I have discovered, 
the disclosure would astonish you; nor would you, sir, be less astonished were 
I, by a detail which the occasion would require, prove to you that he would 
be a pitiful rogue indeed who, when detected or suspected, meets not with 
powerful advocates among those who, in the present corrupt time, ought 
to exert all their powers in the support of these friend-plundered, much 
injured, and I was almost going to say, sinking States. Don't apprehend, 
sir, that I color too highly or that any part of these intimations are the 
effect of rash judgment or despondency. I am warranted to say they 
are not. My opinion, my sentiments, are supported every day by the 
declaration of individuals; the difficulty lies in bringing men collectively 
to attack with vigor a proper object. I have said so much to you, sir, as 
Governor of a State, not intended for public conversation, which sound 
policy forbids; and at the same time commands deep thinking from every 
riian appointed a guardian of the fortunes and honor of these orphan States. ^ 

This is certainly a terrible denunciation or an outrageous 
slander. The charges of plunder appear to be directed princi- 
pally at officials in charge of public property, who are sup- 
posed to be defended by Congressmen who have a family, 
friendly or pecuniary interest in their success. The sad case of 
defalcation by Robert Morris's younger half-brother Thomas 
and that of the Deputy Commissary General of mihtary stores 
come to mind. The arrangement by which a man so high as 

' Marshall's Washington, i., 290, quoted in Wharton, iii., 169. 

^Perhaps alludes to the objects of the British Peace Commissioners 
then in America. 

3S. C. Hist. Soc. MSS. Wharton, i., 581; Deane Papers, iii., 449. 
The two copies last cited differ in a few insignificant words from the letter- 
book copy which I have used. 
19 



290 Life of Henry Laurens 

General Nathaniel Greene as Quartermaster General "entered 
into a most secret partnership" with the head of the commis- 
sary department to sell as members of a private firm supplies 
to their own departments, doubtless at not too low a figure, 
thus adding to their liberal commissions allowed by law, was 
scandalous enough and would have been branded by Laurens, 
as by our stricter laws of to-day, as clear corruption.^ What 
credible reports had come to Laurens's ears, what suspicious 
circumstances he had observed, I cannot say; but we all 
know that a large amount of stealing can go on by unfaithful 
public servants without giving honest citizens a tangible hold 
for even their exposure, and that some corruption of this sort 
did exist among officials during the Revolution. Among his 
manuscripts is a long and able paper describing how the frauds 
in the various departments were worked and recommending 
plans for their elimination. The grafting described followed 
even in its details of method very much the same obvious lines as 
to-day.^ The correspondence of the French ministers reveals 
the fact that during 1 780-1 they were building up a French 
party by gifts and "loans" of money to members of Congress 
and others.^ It throws some light upon the situation, though 
not to our gratification, to know that when the letter to Gover- 
nor Houston was brought before Congress in the following May 
every attempt to fix any censure upon its author proved so 
futile that scant parliamentary justice even was allowed the 
gentleman who made the attempt, he being supported by 
scarcely a man except a few who were at odds with the writer, 
and some of the leading men congrattdated Laurens upon the 

'Laurens and Morris in Laurens's Correspondence, published by the 
Zenger Club in 1861, p. 78; Sumner's Financier and Finances of the Revolu- 
tion, L, 212-14; Wharton, ii., 460; Laurens to Lowndes, Aug. 5, 1778. 
On Greene et al., Bancroft, i., 219-20. 

2 Laurens MSS. in L, I. Hist. Soc., paper marked "No. 103 A." 

3 Bancroft, v., 473; John Jay's paper on the Peace Negotiations of 1782-3 
read before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887, citing De 
Circourt's Histoire de l' Action commune de la France et de I'AmSrique 
pour V Independance des Etats-Unis. Laurens while in the Tower of Lon- 
don in 1 781 wrote of "the corrupt and wicked party, often the strongest, " in 
Congress. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 291 

letter and said that such a one should be sent to the Governor 
of every State. ^ 

Laurens's sweeping, unspecified charges grow tedious and 
raise our doubts by their very extravagance. His own pen 
furnishes evidence that he went too far. March 8, 1778, at 
this very period, he wrote, in seeking to soothe the irritated 
feelings of Lafayette: 

Your Excellency will find that body,^ however it may by artful men 
be sometimes a little bamboozled, to consist of honest, well disposed 
minds, and if "wisdom is justified of her children," I appeal^ to their acts 
in general. 

And in one of his most discouraged moods, in that same 
month, he testified to John Laurens favorably of the character 
at least of our "Senate of 13 members, seldom above 17, against 
whose honesty and good meaning I make no exception. "'' 

During the spring of 1778, this much sinning, sorely berated, 
but withal very laborious and harassed Congress had to meet 
promptly the crisis of an army about to be ruined or dissolved. 
A committee repaired to camp and remained three months 
to confer with the Commander-in-Chief and study conditions 
at first hand. One of the measures urged most earnestly by 
Washington was providing half pay for life for the officers as 
absolutely necessary to stem the flood of resignations and 
restore spirit and discipline. The objections raised appealed to 
him as not only badly reasoned, but entirely beside the mark. 
The three leading adverse arguments were that it involved 
great expense; that the demand smacked of military domina- 
tion over Congress, and last and most important, that it was 
against republican principles, as it established a special 
privileged class in the community. 

The arguments of Washington and those of his opponents 
were both good. The difference arose from difference of view- 
point, and the gist of the trouble, as in so many other critical 
situations in the Revolution, lay in the unwillingness of the 

' Journals, xiv., 588, 610-13; Laurens's MS. notes. 

" Congress. 3 Partly erased, but apparently appeal. 

45. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 104. 



292 Life of Henry Laurens 

States to do what those who were in the field saw was necessary 
to bring the infant nation through the perils of its birth alive, 
no matter whether in strict conformity with what was pro- 
claimed as republican theory or not. Congress did at last 
in deference to pleas from Washington which could not be 
ignored bring itself by the narrowest possible majority to vote 
half pay for life for every officer and eighty dollars bounty to 
every common soldier who served to the end of the war.^ 
This was opposed by every New England man and by every 
South Carolinian present except Matthews. The sectional 
character of the division is striking and turned on the unre- 
publican character of the plan. No man outside New Eng- 
land and South Carolina voted against it save one each from 
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Even as it was, the amend- 
ment to vote the pay for only a term of years failed by a tie. 

So narrow a victory on a question so deeply stirring the 
country could not stand. A compromise was reached on May 
15th by a unanimous vote of the States (the negative being 
supported only by two men from New England) for half pay 
for seven years, in no case to be higher than the half pay of a 
colonel. Thus it stood until October 21, 1780, when Congress 
again made it for life. But the republican discontent in and 
out of Congress was extreme. Sick or wounded officers who 
retired under the benefit found themselves "become objects 
of obloquy. "^ The officers' distrust of the ability or sincerity 
of Congress to redeem its promises led to the threatening events 
in the spring of 1783 connected with the Newburg Addresses, 
which were only calmed by the firmness, moderation and 
patriotism of Washington. ^ By his influence the officers, in 

' Sunday, Apr. 26, 1778, six States to five, with one divided. There are 
many votes Hke this on important questions, showing how impossible it 
would have been to carry on the war if the Articles had already been in 
force with their requirement of nine States voting for any measure of 
importance and of seven States for any question whatever save daily 
adjournments. 

* Address of the officers in Washington's army. Journals (old) for 1783, 
168. 

3 Washington's address to the officers is one of the noblest and most 
eloquent of his utterances and displays a degree of feeling very unusual 



The French AlHance, Etc., 1778 293 

deference to republican sentiments, requested Congress to 
commute the half pay for life to full pay for five years. To 
this Congress agreed, March 226.. The soldiers were given 
bounty lands and the officers received six per cent, certificates, 
which had to await the inauguration of Washington as Presi- 
dent to be cashed.^ 

Laurens shared fully the republican aversion to any pro- 
vision beyond the regular salary during the continuance of the 
war. We must remember this was not a question of pensions 
for the wounded, disabled or needy, of which Laurens was 
heartily in favor, ^ but was a system of service pensions for all 
officers, rich and poor alike. It was similar to the civil list of 
a European sovereign, save that eligibility depended upon past 
services of a very meritorious kind, and the architects of our 
republic were unwilling to see such a system established. 
Moreover it was to include officers only, the common soldiers 
being discharged with an almost trifling land bountytin the West, 
and thus it threatened to set up a special privileged class . After 
purging the State of its most decided aristocratic elements by 
the expulsion of the Royalists, the men who had come to cherish 
a new democratic society did not propose to re-open the old 
paths of rank and privilege. The strength of this feeling and 
the conviction that matters of destiny were being fought out 
in these years by the turn which custom should then be given 
is exemplified by the clamor excited by so harmless a society 
as the Cincinnati; and, judging by the tendency of a not 
uninfiuential class in our own times to associate some exclusive 
distinction with themselves on the sole ground that at least 
one of their many ancestors was in this way or that connected 
with the public service in the olden days, we are perhaps more 
indebted than we know to those who upheld these republican 
sentiments along with Henry Laurens. 

Laurens, with his colleagues Drayton and Hutson, voted 

with him. It is found in his Works, viii., 560-3, and also in Journals (old) 
of Congress for 1783, 180-3. 

^ Hart's Formation of the Union, 106. 

' Laurens to Washington, May 5, 1778, in MS. letters to Washington in 
Lib, of Congress. 



294 I-if'S of Henry Laurens 

against any compensation whatever besides ordinary pay 
during the war/ He stoutly objected to the army's domina- 
ation over Congress. " 'Tis a matter of indifference to me, " 
he wrote to Duane, "whether the tyrant's name be George 
or Dick."^ His argument in a letter to Washington is very 
strong : 

I view the scheme as altogether unjust and unconstitutional in its nature, 
and full of dangerous consequences. It is an unhappy dilemma to which 
we seem to be reduced; provide for your officers in terms dictated to you, 
or lose all the valuable soldiers among them; establish a pension for officers, 
make them a separate body to be provided for by the honest yeomanry and 
others of their fellow-citizens, many thousands of whom have equal claims, 
upon every ground of loss of estate and health, or lose your army and your 
cause. That such provision will be against the grain of the people has been 
unwarily testified by its advocates, whom I have heard converse upon the 
subject. Indeed they have furnished strong ground for opposition against 
an immediate compliance with the demand. If we cannot make justice one 
of the pillars, necessity may be submitted to at present ; but republicans will 
at a proper time withdraw a grant, which shall appear to have been extorted. 
Were I in private conversation with an officer on this point, I should not 
despair of fairly balancing every grievance he might suppose to be peculiar 
to the army, by instances of losses and inconveniences in my own property 
and person ; and I count myself very happy compared with thousands, who 
have as faithfully adhered to our original compact. 

Would to God gentlemen had followed the noble, patriotic example of 
their Commander-in-Chief. How superior are many of the gentlemen now in 
my contemplation (for I know many with whom I do not converse) to the 
acceptance of half pay, contributed to by widows and orphans of soldiers, 
who had bled and died by their sides, shackled with a condition of being 
excluded from the privilege of serving in offices in common with their fellow- 
citizens, bated in every House of Assembly as the drones and incumbrances 
of society, pointed at by boys and girls, — "There goes a man, who robs me 
every year of part of my pittance. " I think, Sir, I do not overstrain. This 
will be the language of republicans. How pungent, when applied to gentle- 
men, who shall have stepped from the army into a good remaining estate! 
How much deeper to some, who, in idleness and by peculation, have 
amassed estates in the war ! I am most heartily disposed to distinguish the 
gallant ofiicer and soldier by the most liberal marks of esteem, and desirous 
of making proper provision for all, who shall stand in need. I would not 

' Journals, x., 373-4. 

' Laurens to Jas. Duane, April 7, 1778. George III. or the "Tom, Dick 
and Harry" of a mob of soldiers. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 295 

except even some of the brave, whose expenses have been princely in extrav- 
agance, while they complained of insufficiency of pay. ' 

When it is remembered that Laurens heartily favored pen- 
sions for the wounded, disabled, and needy, and that the de- 
mand of the officers was for a lifetime pension for themselves 
alone, the common soldier being dismissed with an insignifi- 
cant bounty paid in land, whatever may be our opinion on the 
expediency of granting the demands of the former, in the face 
of their threat to go home and allow the country to care for 
itself in the event of their being refused, we cannot feel our 
admiration of their patriotism elevated or fail to realize the 
force of the argument against thus setting up wide and per- 
manent distinctions of class based, not on sacrifice and service, 
but upon rank alone. 

In the summer of 1778 Laurens sent Washington a package 
of gold for the use of the army, consisting of two double and 
six single Johannes, two pistoles, and eleven guineas, equaling 
about $110.00.^ Washington returned the money with 
thanks and in a second letter to Laurens the same day was able 
to acknowledge the receipt of five hundred guineas public 
money, very useful, he says, as in many instances the paper will 
not pass at all. 

During the perplexity of these financial and military affairs, 
information arrived of England's plan of conciliation. News of 
Saratoga reached London December 26..^ The effect was 
most depressing. Lord Amherst, while refusing the command, 
advised the King that victory was impossible without an army 
of forty thousand men. War with France was momentarily 

' Washington's Works, v., 384, n. Cf. a more detailed argument in 
Laurens to Gov. Wm. Livingston, Apr. 19, 1778, in Sedgwick's William 
Livingston, 273-6. 

2 The Johannes (commonly called in the colonies a "half joe") equaled 
£1 i6s. 2^d. The pistole equaled i6s. 2d. The custom of calling the 
Johannes a "half joe" and the double johaimes a "joe" easily causes con- 
fusion. Wharton, v., 430; Jours., xiv., 839; New International Dic- 
tionary; Standard Dictionary. 

3 See Trevelyan, iii. , 355 et seq., for a brilliant account of t]ie situation and 
conduct of England at this time, 



296 Life of Henry Laurens 

expected. In this situation Lord North, to the stupefaction 
and disgust of his followers, deliberately surrendered the 
entire ground upon which the ministry had justified and carried 
on the war by proposing to repeal every act of which the 
Americans had complained and in addition to insure them 
against taxation, to guarantee never to change their govern- 
ments without their request first made, to allow them all to 
elect their Governors, Judges, etc., besides other substantial 
benefits. A Parliament which had followed the dictates of 
King and ministry so far could only follow now. A commis- 
sion consisting of Lord Carlisle, a rather gay young nobleman, 
William Eden, an Under Secretary, and George Johnstone, a 
man of some ability, formerly Governor of Florida and enjoy- 
ing to some extent the confidence of the Americans, were at 
once dispatched with power to negotiate with Congress, the 
Commander-in-Chief, Governors, or others without stickling 
on forms, and to offer free pardon to great and small on the 
acceptance of reconciliation. 

Lord North's new policy was indeed a revolution hardly less 
than that in progress in America ; and had it been inaugurated 
three years earlier at the dictates of justice and wisdom 
instead of now under the stress of necessity, would have ranked 
its author high in the catalogue of empire builders, and the 
entire EngHsh-speaking world might to-day be linked in an 
Imperial Federation whose vastness, power, and effects on 
history tax the imagination. But the outcome only served to 
illustrate the fact that a great historical movement, as Pro- 
fessor Mace well says, cannot long be confined to the object 
with which it originates, and that an alternative rejected at 
the opportune moment is rarely available at a later stage. 

On their arrival in Philadelphia the commissioners were dis- 
mayed to find that the British were about to evacuate the city, 
and they soon found themselves under the necessity of address- 
ing Congress at its old headquarters. The result was a fore- 
gone conclusion, for Congress had, on April 22d, on hearing 
of the action of Parliament and ten days before news of the 
French alliance, unanimously resolved to hold no conference 
unless the commissioners should first "withdraw their fleets 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 297 

and armies, or else, in positive and express terms, acknowl- 
edge the independence of the said States." 

Laurens held that in appointing commissioners to meet those 
of England Congress should not confine itself to its own mem- 
bers or be influenced by claims of any particular State. ^ 
The standpoints of the parties being irreconcilable and secret 
corrupt intrigues being attempted from the British side, no 
American commissioners were appointed. Congress received 
the first communication from the commissioners by express 
from Washington on June 13th. Their letter was at once 
opened by the President and read as far as through the words 
"insidious interposition of a power which has, from the first 
settlement of these colonies, been actuated with enmity to us 
both, and notwithstanding the pretended date or present form 
of the French offers, " when the reading was interrupted by a 
motion not to proceed further because of the offensive language 
towards the ally of America. The matter was postponed; but 
three days later the letter and accompanying papers and acts 
of Parliament were read and referred to a committee. On the 
17th a reply was sent to the commissioners in terms of the 
resolution of April 226.. 

One at least of the commissioners did not propose to leave 
their address unsupported by private appeals. Soon several 
members of Congress received from Governor Johnstone letters 
seeking by glittering bribes of money and royal appointments 
to gain their aid in reuniting the empire. An extract from 
one addressed to Robert Morris, June i6th, shows how insidi- 
ously it was sought to clothe treachery in the garb of virtue : 

I believe the men who have conducted the aflFairs of America incapable 
of being influenced by improper motives; but in all such transactions there 
is risk, and I think that whoever ventures should be secured, at the same 
time that honor and emolument should naturally follow the fortune of those 
who have steered the vessel in the storm and brought her safely to port. 
I think Washington and the president have a right to every favor that 
grateful nations can bestow, if they could once more unite our interest 
and spare the miseries and devastation of war. 

' Laurens to Lowndes, May i, 1778. 



298 Life of Henry Laurens 

Similar general phrases in a letter of April nth to Joseph 
Reed were followed up by the offer, made through a lady of 
their acquaintance, of £10,000 sterling and any office in the 
colonies which he might desire.^ 

From examination of every paper in the case and draw- 
ing of every inference from their contents, it appears that the 
idea sometimes entertained that Laurens was approached with 
offers of the same kind is absolutely groundless.^ The com- 
missioners indeed came prepared to attempt him on the 
slightest opportunity. On their departure for America, his 
wealthy friend and erstwhile merchant correspondent Richard 
Oswald, who was a man of weight with the government, put him- 
self at the service of the ministry in order to influence his old 
friend the President of Congress, who, he said, though "rather 
a little enthusiastic in regard to matters of American privileges 
and pretensions, " yet had in 1775 seemed "to express a sensi- 



' Journals, xi., 771-3. 

' But notice the reference to him in Johnstone's letter to Morris on p. 
297. Although feeling it useless, I quote the most significant parts of 
Johnstone's and Laurens's letters: 

Johnstone to Laurens, June 10, 1778 (private): "If you should follow 
the example of Britain in the hour of her insolence and send us back without 
a hearing, I shall hope from private friendship that I may be permitted 
to see the country and the worthy characters she has exhibited to the world, 
upon making the request in any way you shall point out. " 

Laurens wrote an answer, dated the 14th, which he decided not to send, 
in which he replied that until mutual confidence was restored, neither 
private friendships nor any other consideration could induce Congress to 
allow Gov. Johnstone to see the country. 

Laurens sent these and aU the other papers concerned, including the 
letters from Oswald and Manning, to Washington, with the remark, June 
1 8th, "Governor Johnstone is too weU hackneyed in the ways of men to 
trust his deep schemes within our reach. 

"His private letter to me, by the bye is notwithstanding all his good sense, 
no proof of an infallible Judgement, (sic) I am sure it is one of his having 
mistaken his man." 

Drayton collected all the papers in the case and published them in the 
Pennsylvania Packet of July 4, 1778, and followed them up on the 9th 
with a long public letter to the commissioners against their proposals. 
See also Stevens's Facsimiles, 75, and letters to Washington in Lib. of Cong. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 299 

ble attachment to the interests of this country. "^ His care- 
ful letter, brought by Johnstone along with letters from family 
connections, did not fail to arouse Laurens's suspicion that 
"there is some covert meaning."^ 

In harmony with the principle on which he acted in a number 
of other cases in which the exhibit of private papers was pro- 
posed, Laurens opposed the order passed July 9th that all 
letters from the commissioners or their agents, or from any 
British subject, on public affairs, be laid before Congress, and 
refused obedience, since, he says, "I could never consent to 
have my property taken from me by an order of my fellow 
citizens destitute of authority for the purpose. " He continued, 
as before, to exhibit the letter to the members as individ- 
uals and placed it and his answer in the hands of Drayton, 
who was collecting materials to exhibit Johnstone's designs. 
He was one of the minority who voted against holding 
any further communication with the commissioners ; but the 
majority preferred to exclude Johnstone only and leave the 
door open for negotiations with his associates.^ 

Finding their efforts with Congress fruitless, the commis- 
sioners sought the defection of the States individually. Fail- 
ing in every attempt, they issued, October 3, 1778, an 
angry proclamation warning the rebels that, having spurned 
the proffered mercy of their gracious sovereign, they might 
now expect what their conduct merited, a war of desolation. 
After thus doing what they could to injure the cause of their 
master, they returned to England,'' having verified Washing- 
ton's prediction that "their mission will be ridiculously 
mortifying." 

During midsummer of 1778 Laurens incurred the anger of 
Christopher Gadsden in the matter of the latter's resignation 

' Oswald to Lord Dartmouth, March 12, 1778, in Stevens's Facsimiles, 
2091. 

2 1 have no clue to the nature of the letter from William Manning, John 
Laurens's father-in-law, though Laurens submitted it also to Washington. 

3 Laurens to Lowndes, Aug. 5, 1778; Journals, xi., 773, and Laurens to 
Washington, July 31,1778, in transcripts in Carnegie Inst, for Letters from 
Members of the Continental Congress. * Bancroft, v., 287. 



300 Life of Henry Laurens 

following his dispute with General Howe.^ In 1777, when 
General Howe had for six months been in command at Charles- 
ton, General Gadsden claimed the right to command. Howe 
offered to submit Gadsden's views to Congress, to which 
Gadsden agreed. But Howe, later erroneously understanding 
that Gadsden was satisfied, dropped the matter. Gadsden, 
conceiving himself treated with duplicity, submitted the 
matter to the South CaroUna Assembly, which of course was 
entirely without jurisdiction in disputes between Continental 
officers. Politics were at the time extremely bitter, which 
doubtless contributed something to the character of the vote ; 
and when the house refused by a large majority to enquire into 
the manner of his opponent's appointment, Gadsden, true to 
his impulsive nature, stripped off his badge of office upon the 
spot and going up to Howe, who declined to receive it, threw 
it into the General's hat.^ The factional animosity of the 
time made the affair very gratifying to his opponents and 
added to Gadsden's mortification. In his own impulsive style 
he sought a vindication from Congress by sending in the resig- 
nation of his commission, on the presumption that his friends 
would demand an investigation of the cause of so promi- 
nent an officer's retirement. To his chagrin, the resignation 
promptly went through by a sort of general consent or accla- 
mation without even being put to a vote, being accepted the 
more readily, as Gadsden surmised, from the unfortunate 
circumstance that Congress at the time considered itself 
affronted by threats of resignation from several other generals. 
The coolness of his ignoring only added heat to his anger, which 
he vented without the sUghtest warrant upon President Laurens, 
on the supposition that he must have presented the paper in an 
improper time or manner instead of exerting himself as the 
representative of his State to secure an investigation. As a 
matter of fact President Hancock presented the resignation 
before Laurens's election and no member commented except 

I For an account of the Gadsden-Howe aflfair, see McCrady, iii., 

305-8. 

« Laurens to John Laurens, Sept. 30, 1777, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. 
Hist. Soc. "What follies spring from a sensible man," commented Laurens. 



The French AlHance, Etc., 1778 301 

that some said, "Accept it ; accept it, " which was taken as the 
sense of the house without being put to a vote. 

It is not surprising that Laurens, like the great majority, 
should have been favorable to Howe, independent of his old 
conflicts with Gadsden. Hearing that Gadsden "has, ac- 
cording to his custom, stabbed me in conversation and private 
letters, " he wrote a full account of the proceedings in Congress 
to his critic's partisan. President Lowndes, with the request 
to "read every word of this to General Gadsden. "* 

William Henry Drayton, Gadsden's friend and follower, 
stood by him in the Assembly and after he entered Congress 
and at Gadsden's request sent him a copy of Howe's letter to 
Congress transmitting the resignation. This was said to have 
been the immediate occasion of the duel between the two 
officers in the summer of 1778,^ by which Gadsden insisted on 
vindicating his honor. This being satisfied, he fired into the 
air and then apologized to his antagonist. He sent Drayton 
a letter of July 4, 1778, which he intended but did not request 
Drayton to use as his public answer to Howe in the hope that 
it would secure him a rehearing and reinstatement. Drayton, 
not unnaturally considering the letter a private account of a 
closed transaction, took no steps. Thus ended a farce-comedy 
immensely amusing to Gadsden's enemies and mortifying to 
him, in which his self-will, indiscretion, and impatience led him 
at every turn into blunders which showed how much less effec- 
tive he was as a politician than as a leader of Liberty Boys. 

The whole affair was interwoven with the contest between 
the radical and conservative forces which resulted in the vic- 
tory of the former in carrying the Constitution of 1778, with its 
disestablishment of the church and closing the door to the last 
hope of reconciliation with England. Rather than sanction 
this final breach or the usurpation of authority by the Legisla- 
ture in abrogating the existing instrument of government, 

^Laurens to Lowndes, Aug. 5, 1778, and to Gervais, Aug. 7, 1778; Mc- 
Crady's S. C, iii., 305-8. 

2 John Wells, Jr., to Laurens, Sept.* 6-1 1, 1778, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. 
Hist. Soc. This letter also gives a detailed account of the bloody riot 
between the French and Americans in Charleston in 1778. 



302 Life of Henry Laurens 

John Rutledge resigned the Presidency, March 5, 1778, and 
after Arthur Middleton's declining the honor was succeeded 
by Rawlins Lowndes.^ Lowndes's acceptance of the office 
and his attachment to Gadsden were said to "have gained him 
the enmity of that powerful family,^ which by their oppo- 
nents is stiled 'the Family Compact.'" Hated by the con- 
servatives, he soon found how difficult it was to retain the 
attachment of the radicals, who disliked his leniency to Tories, 
his economy, and his rigorous auditing of accounts against the 
public.^ Laurens blamed Rutledge for resigning ; but neither 
their friendship nor former political alignment interfered with 
Laurens's cooperation with his successor. 

October 31, 1778, completed a year's service by Laurens as 
President of Congress. He had often expressed his approval 
of the clause in the Articles of Confederation forbidding a man 
to hold the office more than one year in three, and he accord- 
ingly offered his resignation. The next day, Sunday, he was 
shown a letter in Rivington's New York Gazette professing 
to be from an admirer, saying he was surprised to see Laurens 
at the head of such banditti.'' This circumstance greatly 
embarrassed him. He had been extremely desirous of resign- 
ing the chair, but should he persist he might be supposed to 
afford the writer some ground for saying he had carried his 
point, and he was "averse to gratifying the enemy, who seem 
to have thrown the flattering letter" in his way as a tempta- 
tion. If he retracted he would be "charged with vanity and 
versatility." On Monday the members gathered in a circle 
and Samuel Adams communicated their unanimous desire for 
him to serve until the Articles were adopted by all the States, 
or at least to continue to serve temporarily. Laurens expressed 

'5. C. and Amer. General Gazette, March 12, 1778. The Chief Execu- 
tive was called President under the South Carolina constitution of 1776. 

2 Rutledge. 

3 John Wells, Jr., to Laurens, Sept. 6-1 1, 1778, in Laurens MSS. in L. L 
Hist. Soc. Notice that Lowndes, who temporarily shrank, with Rutledge 
and Laurens, from the extreme measures of 1775-6, afterwards returned to 
the more radical style of politics which had characterized him before the 
Revolution. 

4 The letter, copied from the Royal Gazette, is in the Hist. Mag., x., 316. 



The French Alliance, Etc., 1778 303 

his pleasure at being able to balk "his quondam friend" in 
the newspaper and acceded to the request of the members, but 
declined to approve a minute of the proceedings when such was 
presented by the Secretary, saying, "he had no anxiety for 
obtaining complimentary records."^ The Journals thus con- 

' Laurens MSS. in S. C. Hist. Society; Philanthropes' answers to some 
correspondents . 

The respect felt for Laurens by his enemies is evidenced by the fol- 
lowing from Jonathan Odell's satirical poem, "The American Times," 
written by this most able of all the Tory writers in America in 1779 and 
first published, perhaps, says Tyler, early in 1780: 

"At length they're silenced! Laurens, thou draw near; 
What I shall utter, thou attentive hear! 
I loathe all conference with thy boistrous clan. 
But now with thee I'll argue as a man. 

" What could incite thee, Laurens, to rebel? — 
Thy soul thou wouldst not for a trifle sell. 
'Twas not of power the wild, insatiate lust; 
Mistaken as thou art, I deem thee just. 
Saw'st thou thy king tyrannically rule? 
Thou couldst not think it — thou art not a fool. 
Thou wast no bankrupt, no enthusiast thou ; 
The clearness of thy fame e'en foes allow. 
For months I watched thee with a jealous eye, 
Yet could no turpitude of mind espy. 
In private life I hold thee far from base — 
Thy public conduct wears another face. 
In thee a stem republican I view; 
This of thy actions is the only clew. 
Admit thy principles — coiold these demand, 
Could these give right, to desolate a land? 
Could it be right, with arbitrary will. 
To fine, imprison, plunder, torture, kill? 
Impose new oaths, make stubborn conscience yield. 
And force out thousands to the bloody field? 
Could it be right to do these monstrous things — 
Because thy nature was averse to Kings? 
WeU, but a stem republican thou art; 
Heaven send thee soon to meet with thy desert ! 
Thee, Laurens, foe to monarchy we call. 
And thou, or legal government, must faU. 
Who wept for Cato was not Cato's friend; 



304 Life of Henry Laurens 

tain no suggestion of the incident. The termination of his 
presidential duties was destined to hinge upon much graver 
affairs than this. 

Who pitied Brutus, Brutus would offend. 
So, Laurens, to conclude my grave harangue, 
I would not pity, though I saw thee hang." 

Tyler's Literary Hist, of Amer. Rev., ii., 123-4. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE DEANE-LEE MATTER AND LAURENS 's RESIGNATION AS 
PRESIDENT, 1778-79 

LAURENS'S resignation as President carries us into the 
bungling "militia" diplomacy which so discredited and 
endangered the American cause during the first three years 
of the war. Silas Deane, the first regularly commissioned -^ 
representative of the United States abroad, arrived in Paris 
to take up his duties as diplomatic and financial agent in 
France, July 7, 1776. Arthur Lee, a member of the famous,^^ 
American family of that name, was residing in London at the 
outbreak of the Revolution, and during the early months of 
the struggle corresponded from time to time with Congress on 
the state of affairs in England. When Jefferson, who had been 
elected along with FrankHn and Deane to represent the United 
States at the French Court, declined to go abroad, Lee was 
elected in his place — one of the most unfortunate occurrences in 
the history of the Revolution. Lee was a man of integrity and 
energy, or perhaps more correctly restlessness, and such a high 
degree of the low order of talent necessary for writing interest- 
ingly unscrupulous slander as to have earned the sobriquet 
of the American Junius. His jealousy, suspicion, and hate 
made him the prince of marplots, and his egotism was so 
flourishing as to blind him to the ludicrousness of attempting 
to reorganize the entire foreign service for the convenience of 
himself, a person unsuitable for any diplomatic duties. In 
writing to his brother Richard Henry, after saying that Spain 
"is of all places the most disagreeable to my disposition," he 
continues : 

20 305 



3o6 Life of Henry Laurens 

There too I should be at a great distance from my brother, from intelli- 
gence with you, and from all political conversation; for a degree of indo- 
lence reigns there, that is almost inconceivable. My idea therefore of 
adapting characters and places is this : — Dr. F. to Vienna, as the first, most 
respectable, and quiet; Mr. Deane to Holland; and the Alderman to 
Berlin, as the commercial department; Mr. Izard where he is; Mr. Jen- 
ings at Madrid, his reserve and circumspection being excellently adapted 
to that court. I mean Edmund Jenings, whom you know, whose real 
abilities to serve may be relied on. France remains the centre of political 
activity, and here therefore I should choose to be employed.' 

Three months later, in again urging his program, he says: 
"If this scheme can be executed it will disconcert all the plans 
(of his enemies Franklin and Deane) at one stroke, without an 
appearance of intention, and save both the public and me." 
— ' ' And me, ' ' let it be remembered. Nor did this soldier of the 
common good hesitate to urge his astounding game of move- 
kitchen-furniture after he had charged Deane, for whom he 
was arranging the important post of Holland, with dishonesty. ^ 

What might have remained a private affliction was enlarged 
into a public misfortune by the fact that Arthur Lee belonged 
to a group of four brothers, one of whom, William, was also 
in Europe, and two of whom, Francis Lightfoot and Richard 
Henry, were influential members of Congress and, like him, 
had the confidence and unwavering support of the Adams 
following. 

Deane no sooner arrived in Paris than he incurred the 
jealousy of Lee, who saw his ambition of playing the sustainer 
of the infant republic about to be eclipsed. Deane was a 
man of strong self-esteem and unaccommodating manners. 
In several respects his conduct was lacking in judgment; 
nevertheless, for almost two years he performed services of the 
utmost value to his country by getting into the United States 
large quantities of indispensable military supplies. He went 
out before our recognition by any European power under 
instructions to maintain the character of an American mer- 
chant, and on this ground justified himself in trading on his 

I Arthur Lee to R. H. Lee, Oct. 4, 1777, in Life of Arthur Lee, ii., 115. 
Dr. F. is Franklin; the Alderman, William Lee. 
^ lb., ii., 127, 134, 137-8. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 307 

own account as a blind. Arthur Lee was soon writing home 
that Deane ignored him, kept his deaHngs a mystery, and used 
pubHc money in his own ventures; and in consequence, De- 
cember 8, 1777, Deane was recalled. The words employed, 
however, in bidding him return, with malicious cunning con- 
cealed the reason and object of the summons. His enemy 
Lovell, of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, who framed the 
resolution, wrote the following account of his achievement 
to Richard Henry Lee : 

The day after you left York, I moved Congress for an Order in the 
following words. "Whereas it is of the greatest Importance that Congress 
should, at this critical conjimcture be well informed of the State of affairs 
in Europe, and whereas Congress have resolved that the Honble. SUas 
Deane Esqr. be recalled from the court of France and have appointed 
another Commissioner to supply his place there. 

Ordered That the Committee for foreign affairs write to the honble. Silas 
Deane, and direct him to embrace the first opportunity of returning to 
America and upon his arrival to repair with all possible dispatch to 
Congress. 

Continuing he thus describes his communication of the 
resolution to Deane : 

I spread a small Plaister for a large wound myself by the following: 
Sir 

By accident I find myself called upon singly to execute the duty of the 
Committee for foreign affairs, in communicating to you an order of Congress 
of this day respecting your return to America. 

The order stands in need of no comment from the Committee to elucidate 
it; and, being drawn in terms complimentary to your abilities of serving 
these United States upon your arrival, I take pleasure in conveying it, 
being 

Sir 

your very humb. Servt.' 

A large wound indeed it was ; a well-nigh fatal wound, from 

whose effects poor Deane' s reputation is hardly yet resurrected. 

Deane received notice of his recall in Paris, March 4, 1778, 

' James Lowell to R. H. Lee, in Lee Papers in Univ. of Va. Lib. ; tran- 
script in Carnegie Institution for Letters from Members of the Continental 
Congress. Cf. Wharton, ii., 444; Jours, for Dec. 8, 1778. 



3o8 Life of Henry Laurens 

and left on the 30th for Toulon, whence he sailed April loth 
with Count d'Estaing's fleet. July loth he informed Congress 
of his arrival the day before in Delaware Bay.^ Though he 
came with a lively sense of the welcome which his services de- 
served, a soberer consideration would have reminded him that 
there was ample room for apprehension. He had harassed and 
embarrassed Congress by engaging numbers of French officers, 
many of whom had to be turned away on their arrival, and 
had even gone so far as to recommend that the Due de Broglie 
be made Commander-in-Chief. Their partisan espousal of 
Arthur Lee made the most powerful and compact group in 
Congress his inflexible enemies and the minds of others were 
colored in his disfavor. Yet he was not without defenders of 
the highest character, notably John Jay and Robert Morris. 
The agitation which had been stirred for the months previous 
by Lee, seconded by Ralph Izard,* had aligned ahnost every 
member for the conflict which was foreseen. "I can only 
deplore their impolitic, and, I was going to say, schoolboy, 



' Wharton, ii. , 643. Bancroft says, v. , 284, that the fleet arrived July 8. 

" The rather excitable and self -esteeming Mr. Ralph Izard, of South Caro- 
lina, to whom we have found Laurens some years previously complaining of 
men of his sort, gentlemen of leisure who neither managed their own affairs 
nor understood how to value the services of those who did it for them, was 
in Europe when the Revolution began. Congress appointed him to the 
Court of Tuscany, but as the Grand Duke would not commit himself by 
receiving an American minister, he remained in Paris, where his espousal of 
Lee and his meddling and jealousy towards Deane and Franklin added 
to the confusion of the amateur diplomacy of the period. Laurens was in- 
clined towards him as a fellow South Carolinian and one opposed to Deane, 
but does not appear to have esteemed his ability. In the Laurens Papers 
is a parody of his letters very cleverly exposing his conceit and factiousness. 
(Printed in Wharton, i., 591, in Moore's Materials for History, ii., 86, and 
also in the Deane Papers.) Whether Wharton's statement that it is by John 
Laurens since in his handwriting, is his own or repeats someone else's 
opinion, I must say that the idea appears to me impossible. The copy in 
the Pennsylvania Historical Society is as clearly in the hand of Henry 
Laurens's secretary, Moses Young, as any paper coiild be; but this by no 
means proves Yoimg the author. Whether Wharton or his guide mistook 
this for John Laurens's hand or whether John also made a copy for his 
father is immaterial. There is no circvunstance to connect the paper with 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 309 

jarrings, " Laurens wrote in unpleasant anticipation.^ The 
"jarrings" were promoted by two circumstances: First, 
Congress had been sowed down with suspicions of the gravest 
character by Arthur Lee; and secondly, Deane professed to 
have understood that he had been summoned primarily to 
report upon political conditions abroad and to have hurried 
home without waiting to collect the numerous widely scattered 
papers necessary for a full and final settlement of his commer- 
cial transactions; whereas his opponents maintained that he 
should have attended to this latter, even though he had had 
to delay his return. We may thread our way through the 
confused months that followed by tracing the debates upon two 
questions. First, Should Deane report orally or in writing? 
Second, What steps should be taken to settle his accounts so as 
to reveal the truth of the charges of defalcation or vindicate 
his character and secure the payment of the large balance 
which he claimed as his due? 

As to the method, Deane's friends favored an oral report; 
but his enemies sought to prevent this, as it was sure to 
involve inaccuracies, uncertainties and disputes. "Here is a 
field, " wrote Laurens, "without limits for oratory and wrangle 
and finally for mutual dissatisfaction. I have troubled your 
Excellency thus minutely because the subject is not minute. "' 
Congress, nevertheless, at the earnest soUcitation of Deane's 
friends, says Laurens, "and from motives which cannot be 
effaced from the remembrance of those gentlemen who were 
then present," consented, August 15th, to hear him orally. 
Accordingly on the 15th, 17th, and 21st, he was before the 
house, when the proceedings were interrupted by an examina- 
tion of charges of corruption against him by Mr. Carmichael. 
Now began the protracted delays in which Deane became the 
football in a pitiful game of personal and factional politics 
which sadly neglected considerations of justice and public wel- 

him. I cannot understand how anyone cotild consider Jotin Laurens the 
author when his father endorsed the performance, " Traits of the Infamous 
Practices of Party in Congress." 

* Laurens to Washington, Jtme 8, 1778. 

' Laurens to President Lowndes, Aug. 11, 1778, 



310 Life of Henry Laurens 

fare. His attendance was postponed from time to time, until, 
losing his patience and deeply wounded at being received in this 
manner when he had expected an ovation for his services, he 
stated his case through the Pennsylvania Packet, December 5, 
in an appeal to the ' ' Free and Virtuous Citizens of America. ' ' ^ 

Deane's newspaper article revealed the quarrels that had 
occurred between the commissioners in Paris, which he laid to 
Arthur Lee, and charged that Congress had shut its ears to him 
and denied him justice. This appeal, though violating pro- 
priety, secured attention; for Congress immediately voted to 
' allow him time to prepare a written report of his transactions ; 
"which," says Laurens, "if I understand an5^hing of public 
business, ought to have been completed and ready for pre- 
sentation before he landed upon the American shore. " Though 
Laurens had striven in August to require the report in writing, 
he now, after reading Deane's article, opposed that method, 
since it would give him the opportunity of making his "slan- 
ders ' ' against his colleagues matters of record. Deane's report 
was, nevertheless, read, December 226., 23d, and 31st, when he 
was given indefinite leave without any indication of when he 
might expect either condemnation, vindication, or the pay- 
ment of the large amounts which he claimed were due him in his 
commercial transactions for the public. 

President Laurens almost immediately after entering Con- 
gress had formed an unfavorable opinion of Deane's ability,' 
and many causes had since contributed to a similar view of his 
character. Laurens misunderstood Roderique Hortalez & 
Co., disliked the methods of Beaumarchais and supposed 
that he was in some sort Deane's partner. His ties with the 
Adamses and Lees were very strong; and besides his admiration 
for Arthur Lee, whom he seems to have met in England in 
1 77 1-4, as a defender of American rights, he had personal 
reasons for attachment . Only a few months before the present 
matter Lee had written him from Paris of a touching kindness 
he had performed in arranging to receive and transmit to 

^ A thousand copies of his article, intended to be the first of a series of 
articles, he had struck off as handbills. 

' Laurens to President Rutledge, Aug. 12, 1777. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 311 

Laurens's gallant son the letters of his young wife in England.^ 
Though Laurens never sunk to the partisan depths that dis- 
credited some of his colleagues, I cannot escape the conclusion 
that his conduct in the Deane-Lee matter was influenced by 
these circumstances. 

On Deane's return from France, President Laurens heard 
him go over his affairs in a two-hour private interview, at the 
conclusion of which he told him that he believed him, as he 
made his statement upon his honor ; 

but [Laurens continued] from my youth I have in such cases as these been 
governed by the maxim, hear the other party; therefore you will excuse me 
for delaying a final opinion. Another thing, Mr. Deane, I must say, for 
I flatter no man ; I think you ought to have brought your accounts. You 
could never hope for a better opporttonity.^ 

According to Deane's narrative, he presented a signed state- 
ment from Grand, the commissioners' Paris banker, of all 
funds spent; but Grand could not part with the original 
vouchers until a final accounting. Nevertheless, Mr. Laurens 
considered, he himself tells us, that a man who had disbursed 
about £250,000 sterling and had come to America with a very 
strong French convoy, before the opening of hostilities between 
France and Great Britain, had no excuse for coming without 
accounts and vouchers.^ 

The position in which Laurens represents himself on Deane's 
arrival did not continue long. His always strict demand for 
exact business methods in accounting and in filing papers 
could not excuse Deane's negligence; the constant rumors and 
not infrequent proofs of corruption in public servants pre- 
possessed his mind, and Arthur Lee's reiterated charges, com- 
bined with an apparent reluctance of Deane's advocates to 

^Laurens to John Laurens, July 5, 1774, in 5. C. Hist. Mag., iv., 219; 
A. Lee to Henry Laurens, April 4, 1 778, in Life of Arthur Lee, ii. , 141 . 

' Laurens's statement in Laurens MSS. in S. C. Hist. Soc. 

3 Deane Papers, v., 355, and Laurens's MSS. Deane says President 
Laurens received him cordially and only later joined his enemies. The 
cordiality was doubtless no more than the courtesy of which Laurens 
frequently speaks as demanded by his position towards other government 
representatives even though personally distasteful to him. 



312 Life of Henry Laurens 

meet the issue squarely, convinced him that the man had been 
dishonest. 

Keeping all this in mind and recollecting Laurens's keen 
sense of his own dignity and of that which Congress should 
maintain, we can readily understand that he would consider 
Deane's appeal to the public while his case was pending before 
Congress, as well as the language used, an affront not to be 
overlooked. "I had antecedently to the appearance of Mr. 
Deane's insult," he wrote President Lowndes, "been exceed- 
ingly chagrined at the tame submission of the great Repre- 
sentative of the United States to the most gross affronts." 
Brigadier General Thomson, he says, had in a public coffee 
house called Congress a set of rascals and had particularly 
applied the term to Mr. Drayton, who was present. Then 
came Deane's insult. In reply to that Laurens moved that a 
committee be appointed to report upon the article and that 
Congress refuse him further audience until hearing from its 
committee. But Congress, as narrated above, shamed for 
its delays, felt constrained to put justice before dignity; an 
amendment "that the printed letter be read" was voted down 
by a majority of one State, and Laurens's original motion was 
quashed by calling for the order of the day. 

Irrespective of the propriety of Deane's entering the press, 
Congress was in a poor position for criticizing, as he who claims 
equity must come into court with clean hands. Mr. Laurens 
appears to have been too much concerned about dignity and 
consideration for Arthur Lee to see with a clear eye, and we 
could wish that his declarations repeatedly made during the 
following months of his wilHngness to recall Lee to confront 
Deane had earlier taken shape as a policy to be pushed to 
accomplishment to the disregard of all secondary issues. But 
now dignity was his game, and he determined to play it on a 
high line. Reflecting upon the refusal to call Deane to account, 
he was only confirmed in his disgust at tame submission to in- 
sult and determined upon a very pointed protest. "Failing," 
he writes, " . . .to rouse Congress to the vindication of their 
honor, I felt for my own and resolved to descend from the 
chair to the floor, where I could be of the most real service to 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 313 

my country." Accordingly, two days later, on Wednesday, 
December 9, 1778, he rose in his place as President imme- 
diately after the house came to order and in a carefully written 
speech reviewed the circumstances since the appearance of 
Deane's article, concluding with this severe rebuke : 

Finally, gentlemen, from the considerations above mentioned, as I 
cannot consistently with my own honor, nor with utility to my country, 
considering the manner in which business is transacted here, remain any 
longer in this chair, I now resign it.' 

He could not omit the closing sentence of his speech, 
Laurens wrote a few days later, "because I was persuaded 
good consequences would follow the strong reproof and perhaps 
continue at least a fortnight." 

We can readily believe Jay that Congress were disgusted. 
They ordered an election for the next day and immediately 
adjourned. On reconvening his friends tried to replace him, 
but that failing, one moved (to return to Laurens's own nar- 
rative) "for thanks to the late President. He was jockeyed 
by 'the manner in which business is transacted here,' and 
this repeated daily until" December 15th, when Laurens, as 
he himself tells us, "modestly demanded a testimonial of my 
conduct, intimating the honor and interests of Congress and 
the States were as nearly concerned as my own," "that I 
held my act of resignation to be the best act of my life ; that 
if any gentleman had taken offense at the concluding words, 
I had to say in apology that I did not mean to give the 
occasion &c &c. " He then retired and Congress, without a 
division, 

Resolved, That the thanks of this Congress be given to the Hon. Henry 

' The speech is printed in full in the new edition of the Journals, xii., 
1203-6. Until a copy was found among the papers of Bishop Ettwein and 
published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1889, 
vol. xiii., pp. 232-6, it was nowhere accessible in print or known to scholars 
in MS. It is in Laurens MS. letters 1777-82, p. 240. 

What basis Bancroft had (v., 293) for saying that "Laurens retired from 
the office of President of Congress in the expectation of being appointed to 
negotiate a loan in the Netherlands," I cannot imagine. Doubtless merely 
confusion with later events. 



314 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens, Esq., late President, for his conduct in the chair, and in the 
execution of public business.^ 



Thus, by a strange mutation of circumstances, the same 
President who declined to sign the minutes until certain com- 
plimentary passages were deleted is found within a little over 
two months, for the sake of his good fame, extracting from 
that same body a formal vote of thanks by a process suggestive 
of the extremest resources of the dentist's art. He plumed 
himself that this comprehended an endorsement of his "sun- 
dry reasons" for resigning — a view which is reflected in his 
remark to Congress that their honor and that of the States 
was as much concerned as his own ; but few indeed would share 
this view. Seven months later he still declared that his 
resignation was the greatest act of his life. It is true that he 
had put himself on record as condemning slipshod methods of 
dealing with a public servant whom he considered to have 
been guilty of careless administration, and he feared of worse, 
and had maintained his own dignity as President. If he had 
carried with even balance the other duty of securing with equal 
zeal a prompt hearing and strict justice for this accused public 
servant during the long months of delay which provoked his 
indiscretion and also during the months which were to follow, 
we might admit the glory with which he considered that he 
had covered himself. But rather is the reflection forced upon 
us that his course must have served to accentuate the already 
bitter factional animosities and render him in particular still 
less capable of judging with impartial mind. His act, therefore, 

^ Almost verbatim the same as the resolution of thanks to Jay, except that 
in the latter case the words, "in testimony of their approbation" precede 
* ' of his conduct in the chair. " Wharton, with his usual carelessness about 
Laurens, states that Congress did not pass any vote of thanks to Laurens 
and enters upon surmises as to the reason for this imaginary fact. (See 
Diplomatic Correspondence, i., 581, n.) My authority, besides the Jour- 
nals of Congress and the few minor citations noted, is the Laurens MSS., 
particularly Laurens to President Lowndes, Dec. 16, 1778, and other letters 
of the immediate period. Jay is authority for the statement that Congress 
were disgusted and that an effort was made to replace Laurens in the chair. 
(See Pellew's Jay, no.) 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 315 

the outcome of the most creditable instincts when distorted by 
the passions of conflict, takes high place in the series of events 
which with the most cruel injustice blasted the name and \ 
crushed the life of one of the most valuable servants in accom- j 
plishing our independence/ 

Laurens had proved an eminently satisfactory officer in 
the position which he now resigned. He was equipped with 
natural talent, long and varied training, and a keen sense of 
personal dignity and the respect due to Congress and his 
office. "I think him a very sensible, judicious man, ac- 
quainted with the world, and makes an excellent President," 
wrote Josiah Bartlett.^ Probably no President under the 
Confederation was more efficient in attending to his duties. 
He was full and frequent in his official correspondence. As 
Lovell expressed it in answering an official who complained 
that he was not kept posted on public affairs by Jay's few and 
brief communications, the former President was fond of his pen 

' As illustrative of the bitter prejudices in the Deane-Lee affair, in 
addition to Laurens's plentiful reflections upon the sincerity of his oppo- 
nents, take the following from John Adams : 

The failure of Congress to censure Deane for his article amounted to 
"a dissolution of the Confederation" (Sumner, i., 222, quoting Adams, 
iii., 191); and this eminent Puritan statesman recorded in his diary, Feb. 
8, 1778, that it was "the most wicked and abominable production that ever 
sprang from a human heart. He appeared to me in the light of a wild boar, 
that ought to be hunted down for the benefit of mankind. I have given 
him up to Satan to be btiffeted." (Quoted in Clarke's Deane, 154.) 

Richard Henry Lee corresponded freely with Laurens on the Deane-Lee 
matter. His bitter taunts and intolerant fury deprive the letters of aU 
charm or profit. Francis Lightfoot Lee allowed himself to denounce 
William Henry Drayton as "turbidus, inquietus, atrox, " which he trans- 
lated as "foul, restless and wicked, " for no better reason than that Drayton 
had the good sense to oppose the folly of placing Arthiu: Lee in a diplomatic 
post where his conduct had closed every door to his usefulness; and Richard 
Henry Lee added that no glove ever fit a hand better than did those epithets 
the " Catilinarian " character to whom they were applied. (Richard 
Henry Lee to Laurens, Sept. 5, 1779, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc.) 
Such passages at least show how much less dominated by his prejudices 
Laurens was. 

* Josiah Bartlett to William Whipple, June 20, 1778, in MS. transcripts 
in Carnegie Inst, for Letters from Members of the Continental Congress. 



3i6 Life of Henry Laurens 

and plied it early and late. ^ He was three or four times as vo- 
luminous as Jay or Huntingdon.* Well might he ply his pen 
early and late, for he was among the gifted letter- writers of the 
period, and his clear, easy, yet animated and forceful style 
lent itself readily to his purposes. 

The qualities that made Laurens a good President for 
facilitating business sometimes led him into undignified 
behavior in his brusqueness, tartness and impatience with 
whatever appeared stupid or unworthy. This is seen in a 
complaint which he lodged with Congress, August 31, 1779, 
against Secretary Charles Thomson and the incidents stated 
in Thomson's reply. ^ Laurens accused Thomson of insolently 
refusing him while President copies of the minutes ; of inso- 
lently refusing to supply him as President with good drafts of 
certain badly written papers for the mail ; of refusing to allow 
him to have a copy of an ordinary printed act of Parliament 
and afterwards allowing others to carry away even secret 
papers; and of treating him with such rudeness in snatching 
from his hand a copy of the minutes he had taken up as a repre- 
sentative of South Carolina that Laurens threatened to kick 
him. Thomson doubled his fist and said, "You dare not" ; and 
only the time and place prevented the President from applying 
his foot to the appropriate part of the Secretary's anatomy as 
promptly as he had put his hand to the nose of the Charleston 
customs officer when he was about ten years younger. For 
these abuses of power in office and affronts to Congress, as 
Laurens called them, he hoped the house would do "justice 
to its members. " 

To all these small matters Thomson returned an answer 

' I thank Prof. Edmund C. Burnett of the Carnegie Institution of 
Washington for this quotation. 

» In the MS. letter books in the Lib. of Cong., Jay's and Huntingdon's 
presidential correspondence each fills 19.9 pages a month, with large spaces 
between the lines. Laurens's fills 44 pages a month much more closely 
written. 

3 Journals, xiv., 1008. Laurens's paper is to be fovmd in the MSS. of the 
S. C. Hist. Soc. It has been published in Potter's American Monthly, vi., 
172, and Thomson's reply in vi., 266, perhaps from the MSS. of the miser- 
able little affair in the Hist. Soc. Penn. Col. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 317 

which appears to have been satisfactory to Congress and 
certainly is sufficiently so to me to justify my omitting it with 
endorsement . ^ He then proceeded to detail several interesting 
exhibitions by President Laurens calculated to undermine his 
character as a fair and courteous official. Laurens at least on 
one occasion, he says, rose in his place and made a speech in 
debate. Considering that Congress often had less than a 
dozen members present and as Laurens was not unlikely on 
this occasion, as he was for months, the sole representative of 
his State, we may excuse him this informality. But there was 
worse than this; Thomson avers that he saw the President 
"so far forget himself as to answer from the chair an honorable 
member from North Carolina by singing aloud, 'Poor little 
Penny, poor little Penny; Sing tan-tarra-ra-ra, ' and that 
another time when he was reading a report brought in by an 
honorable member from Massachusetts Bay, which was under 
debate, he stopped in the middle of a sentence and exclaimed : 
* Solomon Grundy ! Did you ever see such a Solomon Grundy? ' 
which raised such indignation that the honorable member left 
the room, and soon after Congress adjourned. " 

We are indebted to Secretary Thomson for affording us these 
glimpses of President Laurens in his lighter moods. I am 
rather glad he said these things. "Poor little Penny" and 
"Solomon Grundy" were very much in evidence, and it was 
very well to have a President who let them know they were 
recognized, provided he identified them correctly. The 
whole affair died in committee, as was also very proper. 

Laurens's resignation brought Congress to a decision regard- 
ing the expenses of their President. On December i6th, John 
Hancock, Henry Laurens, and the heirs of Peyton Randolph 

' The explanation surmised by the editor of Potter's American Monthly, 
that Laurens unwittingly fell into the manner of the Southern slave master» 
sounded better in 1876 than it would have in 1778, when slave masters were 
found from one end of the Union to the other. While it is not improbable 
that the style of the society in which Laurens had been reared had its 
influence in prompting him to this conduct, still, men who never saw a slave 
have threatened — even given — kicks and blows, due largely to their per- 
sonal temperament. Probably the very irritating effect upon the temper 
produced by the gout had a part. 



3i8 - Life of Henry Laurens 

were requested to present a bill of their expenses for supporting 
their households while in office, and it was ordered that in 
future a residence, table, carriage, and servants be provided, 
with a steward over all, at public expense. Laurens's expenses 
during the thirteen months of his Presidency amounted to 
£1000 sterling, 40 guineas gold, and I4000 continental money, 
exclusive of house rent, servants, horses, fuel, lights, station- 
ery, a pipe of wine, etc., a large part due doubtless to the 
entertainment necessary to his position. He protested against 
their being paid by the public, but Congress overruled him, 
though it did yield to his insistence so far as to reduce the 
amount one-third. 

With shame I confess it to be altogether anti-republican and inconsistent 
with the circumstances of the distressed state of America [he wrote the 
Auditor General in submitting his accounts]. Had I known I had been 
living at public expense, my conduct should have been governed by different 
rules and principles. ^ 

Time proved that he might have spared himself this shame 
and without much cost have gained the glory of steadfastly 
having refused to be reimbursed at all; for though Congress 
"pretended to pay" him £2000 sterling, the continental 
currency he received as its equivalent equaled less than $800 
in silver, i. e., something under one-twelfth of what it was 
supposed to represent.^ 

On the failure of Laurens's friends to replace him in the chair, 
it was agreed to give the presidency to New York. The dele- 
gates from that State proposed General Schuyler, but Jay 
consented to allow himself to be elected to hold until the other 
should arrive — an event which did not occur until after Jay 
had been sent upon a foreign mission and the presidency passed 

^ Laurens to John Gibson, Esq., Auditor General, Jan. 21, 1779. 

2 Laurens to Yoimg, June 14, 1787. November 6, 1779, the Journal 
contains entry that the Treasurer is ordered to pay Laurens $52,284 for his 
household expenses as President; but the item is marked through. Six 
days later it records that he had been paid $35,000, the preamble of the 
report stating that the amount previously allowed had been reduced 
agreeably to Laurens's request. — Journals, xv., 1243-4 and 1259-60. This 
wotdd indicate, by comparison with Laurens's statement of the value as 
less than $800 that the continental paper had then sunk to about 44 to i . 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 319 

to another State.* The choice was indicative of the failure of 
Laurens's resignation as aprotest; for he seems to have 
detested the New York delegates in general, and Jay was one 
of the chief friends of Deane. One of the lamentable features 
^f this quarrel was the estrangement it drew between two such 
upright patriots as 'Laurens and Jay. The former resented 
what he considered the latter's prejudice as President against 
Arthur Lee and on one occasion secured the reversal by the 
house of a ruling unfavorable to his friend. So distant were 
their relations that Laurens replied to a request that he secure 
a recommendation for someone from the President, "Ah! 
but I am not acquainted with Mr. Jay. "^ He nominated and 
strongly supported John Adams in 1779 as peace commissioner 
against the New Yorker, and in seeking to carry his colleague 
from South Carolina, Mr. Mathews, with him "candidly and 
honestly declared to him such exceptions against M(r). Jay 
as neither himself nor any man could remove" ; and this keen 
judge was in this matter so blind to the qualities of men that he 
bemoaned that "Mr. Lee will be, as 'tis intended and expected, 
superseded by Mr. Jay, an avowed and inveterate enemy. 
God's will be done. "^ There is some satisfaction in noticing 
that after escaping from the confines of Congress Laurens was 
liberal enough to suggest to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
that part of the proceeds of the cargo of indigo which he was 
shipping to Europe for his own support while abroad "may 
be very acceptable to Mr. Jay, or other gentlemen in the service 
of these States abroad. " While in Paris they dined with each 
other and visited ; but it is also true that while his references 
to Adams and Franklin during their association as peace 
commissioners are numerous and expressive of high esteem, 
he rarely mentions his other colleague. Jay's cold, brief 
notice of his predecessor's resignation as President indicates 
that the dislike was reciprocal.'' 

^ Duane to Schuyler, Jan. 3, 1779, etc., in transcripts in Carnegie Inst, 
for Letters from Members of the Continental Congress. 

* Laurens to John Laurens, Apr. 18, 1779, in S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 140. 
3 Laurens to John Laurens, Sept. 27, 1779, in S. C. Hist. Mag.,vi., 154-5. 
4Pellew's Jay, no. Laurens in his pamphlet against Jenings speaks of 



320 Life of Henry Laurens 

Again on the floor as a private member, Laurens devoted 
himself particularly to commercial affairs, for which he was 
fitted by his training. ^ But to return to the Deane matter, out 
of which the resignation sprang. Deane read his narrative, 
as already stated, on December 22d, 23d, and 31st, 1778. Dis- 
regarding for the time being the chronological relation to other 
events, we may pursue the subject to its conclusion. The 
points of controversy now were: Should Deane be detained 
and Arthur Lee summoned in order that each might sustain 
the charges made against the other and repel those against 
himself; second. Should Congress settle Deane's accounts and 
so either establish the charges of defalcation or vindicate his 
character and pay him the large sum to which he laid claim? 

Let us first dispose of the question of recalling Arthur Lee. 
Lee's charges of criminal dealings with the public money (not 
to speak of his less serious assertions) were the origin of the 
trouble, and certainly it would seem reasonable, even necessary, 
to summon him to present his evidence. The Lee faction 
denounced this proposal to drag their favorite across the ocean, 
deprive him of the honors of a diplomatic station, and subject 
him to the risk of capture as persecution, and even though it 
meant the destruction of Deane in reputation and fortune, 
they were determined to ward these hardships off their prot^g^. 
The reorganization of the diplomatic service was in progress 
in the spring and summer of 1779, and the friends of Lee, 
hardly hoping that their effort to displace FrankUn would 
succeed, pushed him, on Laurens's nomination, for the court 
of Spain. ^ It was rumored that he lacked the confidence of 
both the French and Spanish courts, a circumstance which, 
if true, made his recall a necessity; but this only stiffened 
Laurens's support, as he attributed any unpopularity in those 
quarters to Lee's rigorous defense of the interests of the 

sitting with friends at Jay's home in Paris, and in a letter to David Hartley, 
April 26, 1783, in the L. I. Hist. Col., he speaks of having Jay to breakfast. 

' Laurens to President Lowndes, Dec. 16, 1778. 

* Laurens did not vote for the recall of Franklin, however, as Sumner's 
erroneous statement that South Carolina (confusing her with North Caro- 
lina) did would lead one to suppose. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 321 

United States in contrast with Deane's complaisance towards 
France. Any reports to Lee's discredit he attributed to 
misrepresentation by Deane and Beaumarchais.' In order 
to refute the rumor of Lee's unacceptability, Samuel Adams 
secured from Gerard, the French representative in Philadel- 
phia, a statement that his government had not adopted thes 
view that Lee was hostile to the French alliance and anti- 
Gallican. Gerard later told Laurens that investigation by his 
court had proved the rumors of this character to be perfectly 
groundless.^ 

Relying upon this negative certificate of character, which 
plainly did not meet the issue, Adams stated in Congress 
on April 15th that he had the highest authority for be- 
lieving that Lee possessed the full confidence of the French 
court. While this might perhaps be defended as not positively 
contrary to truth, still it amounted to a misrepresentation of 
Gerard and a deception of Congress. The Frenchman had not 
expected such a positive turn to be given to a negative state- 
ment, and on hearing of it, hastened to Laurens, who had 
approached him on the same subject, but had perceived that 
he could derive nothing to Lee's advantage, to say that he 
would be sorry if Mr. Adams should force him to speak out.^ 
A number of members could not resist the temptation to apply 
to the one great source of information. "^ Among these were 
Paca of Maryland and Drayton of South Carolina. These j 
gentlemen having understood plainly from Gerard that Lee 
was unacceptable at Versailles and Madrid, read in Congress 
on April 28th a paper to this effect in rebuttal of Samuel 
Adams's statement, which Adams, narrow, self-righteous 
partisan that he was, sought to keep off the Journal. A reso- 

* Deane, after being attacked by Arthur Lee, accused him before Congress \ 
of quarrelsome, violent, and indiscreet conduct which lost him the con- ' 
fidence of the French court and threatened the success of the American 
negotiations in Europe. 

^ Laurens MSS. 3 Jb. 

4 See particularly the very full and unfavorable statement regarding Lee 
given Burke and Nelson by Gerard among MSS. of the N. C. Hist. Com- 
mission, of which the Carnegie Institution has a transcript. 



322 Life of Henry Laurens 

lution by Paca and Drayton to apply to Gerard for information 
on the subject was debated but not carried, and they doubtless 
concluded that unless bold, prompt action were taken, the 
serried ranks of the faction controlling a majority of the 
States, though a minority of the members, would refuse to 
allow the ears of Congress to be opened to the truth and 
would rush their favorite to victory under cover of a beclouded 
issue/ 

But there was one young man at least in the opposition who, 
if overborne in such manner, would be overborne for the first 
time, and with him was associated another of very much the 
same stamp T Drayton of South Carolina and Paca of Mary- 
land. Being convinced that the highest interests of the 
United States would be jeopardized by Lee's presence at either 
I court, they took upon themselves to secure fuU and indis- 
i putable information of his true standing. They went imme- 
diately to Gerard, and on the last day of April spread before 
Congress the result of their interview. This application to the 
minister while the question of consulting him was still before 
Congress, Laurens with very poor grace denominated as 
"infamous"; but it is certain he would not have judged it so 
harshly had not the statement of M. Gerard supplied the 
amplest corfirmation of the position of Paca and Drayton 
and cut the last ground from beneath the feet of himself and 
Samuel Adams ; nor does it appear that he held his own and 
Adams's interviews with the French minister to have been 
immoral, nor that he repudiated Adams's public use of his 
information in support of their cause for the purpose of mis- 
representation. Moreover, though touching a much more 
serious matter, still Paca and Drayton's course was not 
greatly different from Laurens's own conduct in informing Tom 
Paine of a vote of Congress on his case when his expulsion from 
office was pending in the preceding January before its final 
disposition — an act which occasioned much displeasure.^ 
Mr. Laurens, good man that he was, had quite a streak of 

' All which shows that only the name of the political "steam roller" is 
of recent invention. ' Journals, xiii., 37; Laurens MSS. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 323 

self -righteousness and quite a stock of acid adjectives for those 
who differed with him. The act of the gentlemen from Mary- 
land and South Carolina was exactly of a piece with Mr. 
Drayton's direct, bold character, and the paper in which they 
made their report is in his handwriting, with his name signed 
last and may well have been his composition, a suspicion which 
is strengthened by the great severity of the comments upon 
Drayton in Mr. Laurens's private notes. ^ The already bad 
relations of the two South Carolinians, confirmed by this, 
filled much of the few remaining months before death removed : 
from his sphere of usefulness one of the boldest, most brilliant, 
and effective leaders in the history of the Revolution.^ 

Paca and Drayton had done their work. The title of 
"Commissioner for the Spanish Court" remained attached to 
Lee's name, but after this to order him to Madrid was impos- 
sible. Four days after Paca and Drayton's communication 
a motion to recall him failed by a tie vote of the States, though 
the individual voices stood 22 to 14 against him. The align- 
ment was strikingly sectional, but in the opposite way from 
which one might expect. Save only Laurens, the entire 
representation south of Delaware and Pennsylvania voted 
against Lee^; Delaware and Pennsylvania were equally 
divided, and outside New York, every Northern man but three 
went solidly for him. 

Laurens, true to his motto of "Audiam alteram partem,^* 
now adopted a course which showed him superior in fair-mind- 
edness to most of his associates by proposing that Congress 
recall Lee to face Deane, meanwhile detaining the latter at 
public expense, or even accepting his written pledge to remain.'* 
May 4th Burke of North Carolina, a Deane man, showed 
Laurens a motion which he proposed to offer to this effect. 
This Laurens took as a challenge questioning whether he was 

^ Journals, xiv., 534-7, and note on p. 537, Laurens MSS. 

' Drayton died in Philadelphia, Sept. 3, 1779. See the bitter denuncia- 
tion of him by the Lees above, p. 315, n. 

3 His brother R. H. Lee was excused from voting. 

* Burke of North CaroUna proposed the motion to this effect, but with- 
out desiring it to pass. The statement that Laurens originated the idea is 
based on his own assertion in his MSS. 



324 Life of Henry Laurens 

sincere, and Burke confessed to the charge. "He never found 
one {i. e., Laurens) otherwise, " says Laurens, as he proved by- 
seconding and supporting the resolution when offered three 
weeks later. He was forced to sit down in the midst of his 
speech by Burke's withdrawing his resolution in evident appre- 
hension that it would pass. On the loth of June^ Burke again 
called up his resolution, when the vote 'upon it laid bare the 
despicable spirit of the majority on both sides. The question 
was divided ; the detention of Deane failed by a tiCj^and, as the 
propositions hung together, the house refused to put to a vote 
the motion to recall Lee. "Never was a more droll scene 
exhibited in a public assembly, " wrote Laurens the next day, 
and he might have added not often a more pitiful one. With a 
few exceptions the members voted as two conscienceless bands 
of partisans. One sought to harass and discredit Lee by a re- 
call; the other sought to send Deane away alike unjustified, 
uncondemned and untried in order to avoid the hardship, 
risk, and above all, possible humiliation, to their darling Arthur 
Lee, the arch slanderer and marplot of the diplomacy of the 
Revolution. 

Thus were votes given by all, three or four excepted, against the principles 
of the voters [wrote Laurens. As for himself, he continues] my sole motive 
for bringing forward the proposition for detaining Mr. Deane and ordering 
Mr. Lee to appear and support his charges was for obtaining justice; (i) 
to my much-injured country; (2) to individuals. . . . Before I had voted 
against the recall of Mr. Lee^ I had repeatedly declared in Congress that 
I would vote for his recall, provided Congress would detain Mr. Deane, 
and that opinion I have invariably supported in private conversation with 
Mr. Lee's brother, and other particular friends, in opposition to their 
sentiments. "Fiat justitia mat caelum, was my governing principle. 
Thank God, I have acted agreeably to the dictates of my conscience, 
without respect to persons, and I trust my country will not condemn my 
conduct. 3 

A very different explanation of Laurens's conduct is surmised 
by James Lovell, one of Lee's extreme partisans, in his account 
written to that gentleman : 

■ Not the 9th, as Wharton, iii., 216-17, has it. 

* May 3d; not June 8th, as the note in Wharton, iii., 219, incorrectly 
states, confusing the entirely different case of the brother, William Lee. 
i Wharton, iii., 219, n., quoting Silas Deane in France, 98. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 325 

I expect further attempts to get rid of you. It was a fear of that and a 
strong desire to scrutinize Mr. D. that made Mr. Laurens, I imagine, give 
into the late motion. ' 

Laurens's votes in this matter were steadily against the 
anti-Deane New England clique, and we cannot doubt 'liis 
sincerity in arguing for an examination of the two men face 
to face. In a letter to the Governor of his State he begs that 
he shall not be considered a partisan of Lee, as might be in- 
ferred from his condemning some of Deane's conduct and 
throwing his influence against what he considered attempts to 
persecute Lee. Though he wished to do the right, it is plain 
that his prejudices tinged his conduct; he was, however, far 
removed from the blind and unscrupulous policy of some of 
Lee's partisans. Taking the affair all in all, he lost a signal 
opportunity of resolutely and unremittingly leading a move- 
ment for the exercise of unclouded justice. 

Having disposed of this matter, we may now take up 
the other question, the settlement of Deane's accounts with 
the view of proving him a defaulter as charged by Lee or 
vindicating his character and paying him the large balance 
claimed. As Commercial Agent Deane had purchased and 
forwarded from France hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth 
of military stores, on which the war had been sustained. We 
will recall that he had left France in haste in answer to the 
summons to inform Congress "of the state of affairs in Europe," 
that he came without his accounts, and was criticized for not 
bringing them as the proof of his fidelity. His critics were not 
satisfied with his explanation that the words of the summons 
indicated a desire to be immediately informed of political affairs, 
that to have consumed his short time in collecting the widely 
scattered documents would have necessitated the neglect of 
his duties, and that the first intimation of his honesty being 
questioned was after he reached America.^ Though the 
words used in recalling him, that "it is of the greatest import- 
ance that Congress should at this critical juncture, be well 

' Wharton, iii., 223. 

^ Deane Papers, v., 369. Lee's letter and Deane's reply are in Wharton, 
ii., 600 and 768. 



326 Life of Henry Laurens 

informed of the state of affairs in Europe," and that he was 
"to embrace the first opportunity of returning to America,"* 
countenance Deane's contention, yet his alarmed surprise and 
Franklin's anxious testimonial which he brought show that he 
apprehended that there was more in the sudden and unexpected 
summons than appeared in the resolution or in Lovell's com- 
olimentary phrases.^ 

Here again Laurens, though not a friend of Deane, was more 
fair-minded than the majority. He prepared a report blaming 
Deane for not bringing his accounts, even though it had been 
necessary to wait for a later conveyance, and recommending 
that he should be detained and the papers sent for, or if that 
was improper, that he be sent back to France for them at 
public expense. 3 

It was, perhaps, of this that Laurens wrote: 

The report for which a certain Monday was "setapari" remains un- 
considered, and probably will remain so till the day of judgment. < 

Deane could justly write. May 22, 1779: 

I have for more than ten months past been constantly soliciting to have 
the accoimts of the commissioners settled, on the issue of which I freely 
put my reputation and everything dear in life. My solicitations have been 
unsuccessful, whilst my enemies, taking the base and disingenuous advan- 
tage of the circumstances before mentioned of my leaving France, raise a 
cry against me, and say. Where are his accounts? Why did he not bring 
them out? If they were not settled, why did he not tarry and settle them? 
I must confess, that when I reflect that these very men owe their present 
political as well as personal safety to the measures I then took, I am at a 
loss which prevails most in my mind, indignation or contempt, s 

No settlement was provided, and as, unlike some others, 
he had neglected to hold back his percentage, he was reduced 
to live in poverty upon the advances of friends. Hildreth 

' Jours., ix., 1008-9; Dec. 8, 1777. Resolutions plainly stating dis- 
satisfaction with his conduct failed. lb., viii., 605, n. 2. 
* Cf. Franklin to President Laurens, March 31, 1778. 

3 Laurens MSS., vol. xxvii. 

4 Laurens to R. H. Lee, Oct. 12, 1779, in Lee Papers in Amer. Philo- 
sophical Soc, ii., 118, No. 52. A transcript is in Carnegie Institution. 

s Wharton, iii., 182. 



The Deane-Lee Controversy 327 

holds that he was unfortunate in having large sums pass 
through his hands before a proper system of vouchers had been 
established, and no investigator has ever been able to discover 
that he was guilty of dishonesty. If even the worst of the 
charges against him had been true, it would still be necessary 
to admit that his treatment by Congress was marked by 
callous indifference to his rights as a man and with delays 
which amounted to a denial not only of justice, but even of a 
trial. From his arrival, he was the football of parties in Con- 
gress, a body, said Jay, where there was "as much intrigue 
as in the Vatican. " 

Deane's misfortune had been enough to try the strongest 
nature, and his conduct now proved that his was not of that 
cast. He returned to Europe in the vain hope of Congress's 
providing for a settlement, and after months of despondency 
lost faith in the American cause and wrote to his friends re- 
commending a return to British allegiance. Though it is not 
proved that he sold himself to the English, his name from 
that day to this has been a byword. There is scarcely in 
American history such another example of a reputation ruth- 
lessly and recklessly blasted and redress cruelly denied. In 
1842, fifty-eight years after he had died in poverty and os- 
tracism, the United States paid to his heirs as justly due 
$36,988, barely above half of what he claimed, thus closing a 
history supplying another illustration that "from the days of 
Aristides, the ingratitude of republics has been a byword in 
the world. "^ 

' Foster's Century of American Diplomacy, 40. His case suggests that 
of his friend and associate in eariy aid to the Americans, Caron de Beau- 
marchais, who never deserted him. Congress allowed him too to die in 
poverty and many years after his death paid to his heirs a small portion 
of what he had advanced to save our infant freedom. 

In December, 1783, Laurens met Deane in England upon the road in 
company with Dr. Priestly. He undertook to inform Priestly of the 
character of his companion and, according to Deane, lodged through a 
Mr. Russel the following accusations: 

I St. That before entering public life, Deane was poor and unesteemed. 

2d. Nevertheless he sent two ships to sea, loaded on his own account 
soon after reaching France, presumably supplied by British money . 



328 Life of Henry Laurens 

NOTE ON ARTHUR LEE 

We may note that by the reorganization of the diplo- 
matic service in 1779 alluded to above, Franklin was left in 
sole charge in Paris, and Lee remained in that city with the 
meaningless title of Commissioner to Spain. He was super- 
seded by the election of Jay as minister to Spain, Sept. 27. 
Laurens put Lee in nomination unsuccessfully for the position. 
Oct. 13, he was permitted, at his request, to return to Amer- 
ica. He had powerful influence in Congress through family 
and friends, and on May 29, 1781, it was ordered that in the 
settlement of his accounts almost any manner of voucher 
whatever for his disbursements be accepted and that the ac- 
counts be left open if necessary for obtaining these, and, 
as for his expenses, ordinary and extraordinary, "no other 
voucher be required for either, than the word of honor of the 
said A. Lee"; which supplies the ground for Prof. Sumner's 
reflection that "if poor Deane had found such treatment as 
this, he would no doubt have come to stand as one of the 
heroes of the Revolution."^ 

3d. That he was guilty of substituting blank paper for despatches to 
Congress. 

4th. That he used every artifice after being recalled to avoid giving an 
account of his transactions. 

How much of these things Laurens said is not certain; but at any rate 
Deane answered the accusations with fullness and spirit to Dr. Priestly, 
who, according to htm, expressed himself as satisfied. 

•Sumner, ii.,53. 



CHAPTER XXII 

CRITICIZES ROBERT MORRIS — DESIRES A CONSTITUTIONAL 
CONVENTION, 1 778-9 

THE Secret Committee and its successor the Committee of 
Commerce had the important duty of exporting goods 
on the public account and with the proceeds abroad purchasing 
supplies for the conduct of the war. Robert Morris, because 
of his business ability and wide commercial connections, was 
the leading member of these committees. The Committee's 
system of business was loose and careless and their accounts 
had fallen into confusion, though, asserted Morris, through no 
fault of his. Morris had possession of the books from the latter 
part of December, 1777, for many months with the purpose of 
putting them into proper shape. Laurens called for their 
return, at the same time offering to stake two fingers that he 
himself could balance them in two days, provided the original 
entries in the waste book had been regularly made. ^ But, said 
Morris, this groundwork of the whole thing had been neglected. 
The books were sent by the committee to Laurens early in De- 
cember, 1778, who thus immediately entered upon the execution 
of his promise to devote himself after his resignation as Presi- 
dent to the commercial business for which he was equipped. 
He determined to hold them until he found how the public 
money had been spent, and to the request of Morris, then 

'Morris says that he thought he returned the books in July, 1778; 
Laurens asserts that he kept them until September. See Morris in Penn. 
Packet, Jan. 9, 1779, and Royal Gazette, Jan. 23, 1779, as transcribed by the 
Carnegie Inst, for Letters from Members of the Continental Congress. 

329 



330 Life of Henry Laurens 

retired from Congress, a few days after they had come into his 
possession that he surrender them to be adjusted, he replied 
rather tartly that "it would be altogether irregular to put the 
books out of his into the hands of a gentleman not a Member 
of Congress ; that he should make an essay for adjusting them, 
and that when he should stand in need of assistance or informa- 
tion from Mr. Morris, he should take the liberty to call on 
him."^ "I shall be happy if I am enabled to add that you 
deserve the thanks of your fellow citizens." His remarks in 
Congress were distorted in their repetition to Morris, who was 
reported, correctly we may readily believe, in consequence 
to be "hellish mad." Though not charging dishonesty, yet 
Laurens was distinctly critical. Morris engaged in a practice 
for which the other had no toleration — carrying on private 
commercial ventures while he held public office. Laurens 
severely condemned him in 1778 for being concerned as part 
owner in the illegal capture and sale of a Portuguese vessel by 
the privateer Phoenix and was a member of the committee 
whose report ordering restitution was unanimously adopted.' 
Along with the matter of the confused books and Laurens's 
unfavorable prepossession went another of seemingly uglier 
aspect. During the winter of 1777-8 at Yorktown, Francis 
Lewis of New York, also a member of the Committee of 
Commerce, told Laurens that in several instances there had 
"been sad doings, "and proceeded to specify "one extraordin- 
ary affair. " A ship load of about 470 hogsheads of tobacco had 
been shipped by Willing, Morris & Co., attended by every 
circumstance to indicate that it was their private enterprise. 
A few days out the vessel was captured by the British and 
Morris collected from the public treasury the value of the ship 
and cargo, except fifty hogsheads which he represented as 
belonging to himself. "Good God, sir, is it possible?" 

* Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. The books are now lost, probably 
burned, says Sumner, i., 224, n. 

' Laurens to Samuel Adams, March 7, 1778, in Samuel Adams MSS. in 
N. Y. Public Library; Jours., x., 227, and xiv., 803, 838, 857. It is just 
to state that Morris was owner of only one-twenty -fourth part in the priva- 
teer and did not approve the capture. 



Criticizes Robert Morris 331 

exclaimed Laurens; "I am glad you have not enjoined me to 
secrecy. If you had, I believe I should have mentioned this 
circumstance, for it ought not to be kept secret. Justice to the 
public as well as to Mr. Morris requires that it should not. " 

Here was a charge from a responsible source — no less than 
a member of the committee having the commerical operations 
under supervision during the entire period covering the affair ; 
the charge in effect that the highest financial officer of the 
state had shipped a cargo the proceeds of which were to go into 
his own pocket if it went through safe, but the loss of which, 
if sunk or captured, was to be recouped by a theft from the 
treasury on the false ground that the transaction had been on 
public account. Here, if ever, it appeared, was a case to which 
would apply Laurens's exhortation just at this period to Dana, 
who had written him of gross neglect and abuse in a certain 
department : 

Why are we so courtly and mincing? Is there a name under heaven that 
shall sanctify the peculator or screen the man whose neglect of duty has 
brought thousands to misery and death? Forbid it, torpid patriotism of 
1775- No! let the offender be brought forth and the people told, This is 
the man! God awaken us.' 

A few days after the conversation with Lewis in about 
January, 1778, the books of the Secret Committee being under 
discussion, President Laurens begged leave to be heard from 
the chair, and stated, along with his wager of two fingers to 
balance them in two days, that he was all the more anxious for 
their return on account of a circumstance which he had lately 
heard from a gentleman present (pointing to Lewis), and 
recounted the incident of the tobacco ship (if we are to trust 
his own account) , or at least made grave insinuations regarding 
Morris and wished he were present so that he might ask him 
some "home questions." He did not charge dishonesty, but 
he demanded an explanation of circumstances which as they 
stood raised the most dishonorable inferences regarding 
Morris's character. To Lewis, who expressed after adjoum- 

' Laurens to Dana, March i, 1778. 



332 Life of Henry Laurens 

ment his regret for such action, Laurens repKed that justice to 
all parties made it absolutely necessary. 

Here the matter rested until January, 1 779, when Tom Paine, 
who was attacking Deane in the press, turned his guns on 
Morris, Deane's friend and sometime associate in business 
ventures. A paragraph in Morris's reply appeared to Laurens 
to place him in a false light, and in the course of his observa- 
tions in Congress upon the passage he repeated the tobacco 
ship incident. Lewis reluctantly gave his version, and Con- 
gress requested them both to commit their statements to 
writing. A committee of investigation was appointed and 
Morris was called upon to answer Lewis's charge about 
a matter which had been whispered around for two years 
and which was thus by Laurens's frankness brought to 
adjudication. ^ 

Laurens went over every paper bearing on the case and had 
diligent search made in the records of the Secret Committee, 

' The papers by Laurens and Morris are in the Laurens MSS. in S. C. 
Hist. Soc, Congressional Letters, etc., 1779. Others joined in the news- 
paper war, with one of whom, Col. Parke ("Philolethes"), I believe his 
name was. Col. John Laurens almost had a duel because he delayed the 
apology he confessed that he owed for misrepresenting Henry Laurens. 

Though Laurens was so positive that he brought the tobacco ship incident 
up in open Congress a year before the time when it was given an investiga- 
tion and gave details to sustain his contention, it is hard to believe that his 
first allusion was more than a general statement that he wished to ask Morris 
some "home questions" about a suspicious transaction. Not a member 
could be found who recalled more than this, though as Laurens proved, 
many matters were soon entirely forgotten. Lewis, e. g., as will appear 
below, had authorized this very former transaction and then had so com- 
pletely forgotten having done so as to whisper it arotmd as a criminal act 
when it came to him later as news. The following, which almost cer- 
tainly refers to Laurens, would indicate that the question he raised on the 
first occasion was not explained in detail : 

" Penn gave me a hint of the evil intended you by a certain great man; 
but when he came away it only appeared by now and then an innuendo, 
and a promise of what he intended to do when you were present. If he ever 
makes his attack, I am sure it wiU end in his own confusion, and prove him 
to be, what I from a very short acquaintance suspected he was, an empty 

envious, conceited ." — Benj. Harrison to Robt. Morris, June 8, 1778, 

in Wharton, ii., 608. 



Criticizes Robert Morris 333 

but nothing appeared to dissipate the cloud of suspicion 
except what he terms "ex post facto endorsements " on two bills 
of lading after the ship had sailed, though before she was 
captured, stating that the goods were for the United States. 
He disclaimed throughout any accusation of dishonesty against 
Morris, protested against Lewis's repeating the matter pri- 
vately, and asserted that the best friend whom Morris pos- 
sessed could not more gladly hail the proof of his innocence of 
these charges which he (Laurens) had, as "a more generous 
part," dragged from the hiding-places of "slanderous whisper." 

Morris's reply proved that the suspicions against him were 
groundless . The Secret Committee had authorized him to buy 
tobacco on public account with all the appearance of a private 
transaction in order to avoid the extortionate prices which were 
always asked when it was known that large purchases were to 
be made for the public. The minutes of the committee were 
not sufficiently clear to prove this ; but other information when 
placed beside them put it beyond dispute. Laurens him- 
self, being reminded of a forgotten letter by an expression 
in Morris's defense, submitted it as valuable corroborative 
evidence and declared in Congress "that it afforded him the 
greatest satisfaction to have it in his power to produce an 
evidence, which, in his opinion, put it beyond all doubt that 
the ship Farmer, Capt. Dashiel, had been loaded on public 
account."' 

Morris very justly complained that Mr. Lewis, after 
having as a member of the committee authorized his ac- 
tion in the Farmer case and later concurred in the payment 
by the public for her loss, should have been so careless as to 
forget these circumstances and whisper the matter around in 
the character of a criminal transaction. "I am happy," he 
said, "that Col. Laurens from a love of justice, has at last 
brought this affair to a public investigation, my innocence 
being fully and clearly established thereby." Nor can we 

' Jours., xiii., 163-4. The Laurens MSS. in the L. I. Hist. Soc. contain 
letters, including, perhaps, the one alluded to in the text, showing that the 
bulk of the cargo of the Farmer was on public account, as Morris asserted, 
and only a small part on his private account. 



334 Life of Henry Laurens 

entertain a doubt that Laurens's straightforward course, 
though giving a shock at the time, was most admirable. But 
for that, it is not unlikely that this ugly rumor would have 
stolen down the years and left a question mark opposite 
Morris's name to which no answer could have been offered 
except his reputation for honesty. 

The committee of investigation reported that Morris had 
"fully vindicated himself" and discharged with integrity the 
duties imposed by the Secret Committee. No mention was 
made of the shipment of fifty hogsheads on his private account ; 
how far this may be construed as approving this practice each 
must judge for himself. ^ The great financier came out of the 
campaign of vilification started by Tom Paine unsoiled; but 
the facts which were brought out illustrate the wisdom of 
our law, bom of the experience of these years, forbidding the 
Secretary of the Treasury to engage in trade or commerce. 

Morris justified his practice of including shipments of his 
own upon the government vessels on the ground that, having 
deprived himself of the profits of his regular business, he should 
be allowed to compensate his loss somewhat by this means. 
This was not dishonest, though it made dishonesty easy, and 
it was taking advantage of official position in a way which 
modem opinion would not tolerate. Laurens was right in 
condemning it as inadmissible.* 

Morris and Deane, previously interested in several business 
ventures while the latter was in France, now planned a part- 
nership for an international business in which they were to be 
associated with a French merchant, a member of Congress who 
was shortly to resign, and two prominent ex-Congressmen.^ 
Laurens's high standards of pubHc duty, together with his 
critical disposition, led htm to suspect the plan. He de- 
nounced it in Congress, "and divisions follow."'' Such 

' Prof. Sumner, i., 227, says that "it seems a reasonable interpretation 
that Congress did not find that the shipment by WiUing and Morris waS 
wrong. " 

' Cf. note in Lecky, iv., 374. 

3 Sumner, i., 226. 

* Laurens to Gov. William Livingston, April 19, 1779. 



Desires a Constitutional Convention 335 

desertion of the public service for the sake of private gain 
raised his indignation : 

I have neither ambition nor avarice to gratify [he continues]. One- 
third part of my estate is absorbed; the remainder is in very great jeopardy, 
and here I continue contentedly drudging without sleeping one wink less 
from apprehensions of what is passing in Carolina, But notwithstanding 
this quietude of mind under losses and accidents inevitable and irresistible, 
I hate and oppose knaves, those more especially who have persuaded me to 
beUeve them honest. ' 

He still laments that "more ample abilities stay at home to 
save and to make money and to kiss their wives"; yet he 
varies his jeremiad with this fine passage on the character of 
his countrymen: 

Upon my honor, sir, scarce as such jewels are, I believe that taking into 
consideration numbers and circumstances of wealth, real or imagi'ary, there 
are as many patriots now on this land as history can show to have been in 
any coimtry and any one period of time. Reduce us aU to poverty and cut 
oflf or wisely restrict that bane of patriotism, commerce, and we shall soon 
become patriots; but how hard it is for a rich, or covetous man to enter 
heartily into the kingdom of patriotism.^ 

How completely has the great merchant been transformed 
into the rich planter, secure at least against absolute ruin by 
the turns of trade, when he can pass along the sneer once 
shied at him of being "a mercantile patriot" by himself 
coining the phrase, "that bane of patriotism, commerce!" 

Congress met behind closed doors and practically kept even 
its Journal secret. Laurens was opposed to this as unrepub- 
lican and dangerous. The violent and unseemly quarrels 
connected with the Deane-Paine-Morris feud first forced them 
to modify this system by voting, March 31 , 1779, on Drayton's 
motion, to send their Journal weekly, except such portions as 
ought to be kept secret, to the Governors of the States to be 
submitted to their Legislatures. Laurens wished to go much 
further. 

Order the doors to be opened [he exclaimed], that every citizen may know 
what his servant is doing, particular cases excepted, or clamour until the 

' Laurens to Gov. William Livingston, April 19, 1779. * lb. 



336 Life of Henry Laurens 

Journals are printed and published weekly. Our chaplain had so long 
prayed to God to bless us, whom he had set over so great a people, as perhaps 
had intoxicated some of us into an opinion of being actually set over the 
people. But I gave the Doctor a hint t'other day, and he now prays, "foi- 
whose service they are appointed."^ 

Laurens's plans of reform took a much wider view. He 
desired a Federal convention. The low state of the army and 
finances, he says, led him to conceive the plan. To Gov- 
ernor Livingston, of New Jersey, who so highly esteemed him 
as to seek his acquaintance and open a correspondence, he 
wrote, July 5, 1779: 

Upon a serious and full view of our public affairs I am led to believe that 
the call of a general council composed of men renowned for integrity and 
ability from each State, assisted by the Commander-in-Chief and a few 
selected general officers to take under their consideration the state of the 
nation to sit either in or out of Congress (in the latter case to call upon 
Congress for every necessary information) would have an happy effect. 
These committees which we see rising every day are epitomes of the work 
I have in mind ; but however good their views and intentions may be, their 
authority is usurped and may become dangerous to the safety of the people. ' 
Gentlemen who should be sent from the several States for forming this 
Council would acquire a knowledge of very important circumstances of 
which the States are now profoundly ignorant. From their representations, 
wholes and coincident laws would be enacted in each State, without which 
it will be impossible for Congress to proceed in the discharge of public 
business. . . . 

The business of this Council might be begun and ended within two or at 
most three months. Years, and millions of money I apprehend, would be 
saved by it. 

To John Adams, October 4th following, he urged the same 
idea of " a grand convention. " "Each State, at too late a day, 
will find cause to apply blame to itself. . . . But what shall 
be done by and by, and not far distant, for quieting a hungry 
and naked army?" If the kind of Congress we have gets us 
"safe on shore, we shall look back with equal pleasure and 
amazement." 

' Laurens to Gov. William Livingston, April 19, 1779. 
^ Usurped in the sense that, the Articles of Confederation not having been 
adopted, their authority had no constitutional basis. 



Desires a Constitutional Convention 337 

This proposal, coming after the Articles of Confederation 
had been waiting almost two years for ratification, entirely 
ignores their existence and seeks to shape a constitution by 
representatives deputized for that work alone acting under the 
recommendations of Washington, and thus likely to find some 
practical solution for the grand difficulties of army, finance, and 
administration which were threatening the existence of the 
republic. Laurens took his proposal very seriously, for when 
the convention which finally did give us an adequate govern- 
ment was in session, he wrote, July 3, 1787, that the Federal 
convention he moved for in 1779 would have done good; 
"we are rather late now and much up-hill work to be per- 
formed; nevertheless I entertain good hopes." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

LAST MONTHS IN CONGRESS, 1 779 

Fisheries, etc., in Treaty of Peace — Differences with Drayton and North 
Carolina Delegates — Houston Letter — Foreign Mission 

THE harsh criticism which we observed Laurens passing 
upon Drayton during the debates on the recall of 
Arthur Lee was not the beginning of their estrangement. 
It is necessary briefly to notice the relations of the two South 
Carolina delegates during the previous months, as little as 
their small quarrels reflect credit upon them. 

It was scarcely possible that two such characters — so dis- 
similar in temperament, method, and mental habits, and so 
similar in their attachment to their own views — should long 
cooperate harmoniously. As early as 1775 Laurens depreciated 
Drayton's treaty with the South Carohna back-countrymen. 
Though they were on good terms when Drayton entered Con- 
gress, March 30, 1778, in three months' time Laurens was dis- 
satisfied that "my good friend Drayton" should write letters 
from the South Carolina delegation to their State without 
having the senior delegate as well as himself to sign them, 
although he had contributed much of the materials. It will 
vex his friends in South Carolina to see him "forestalled and 
eclipsed."^ Drayton, young, ardent, enthusiastic, always 
striking straight and strongly at his object, was accustomed to 
brush aside formalities which might check one less impetuous. 
Laurens, somewhat sensitive as to what was due a gentleman 
much the senior of his delegation both in age and service and 

' Laurens to John Laurens, July 6, 1778. 

338 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 339 

rather overready to impute bad motives, was not wont to 
withhold his opinion because it might sting. Evidence of 
strained relations is contained also in a letter in which the 
younger man complains in deferential language of being hurt 
at the way in which he was spoken to in the presence of 
Samuel Adams about a difference of opinion.'' 

In the matter of the correspondence Drayton acknowledged 
himself at fault ; but some misunderstanding about the subject 
again broke out early in 1779 and led to Laurens's forbidding 
his secretary to attend his colleague as he had been authorized 
to do in connection with the business of the delegation.'' 
That fruitful divider of friends, the Deane-Lee controversy, 
found them at first in harmony but soon at outs.^ In the 
sharp conflict in which Drayton made his successful appeal 
to the French minister, coming out second best did not 
sweeten Mr. Laurens's temper. The only compliment, or 
rather sort of half compliment, I know of Laurens's paying 
his young associate is the comment to Washington, "However 
as I can always take a decent freedom with my colleague, who 
is really a diligent man, I will not let him pass a day unreminded 
of the necessity for bringing forward his report."'' We are 
all, except the most hopeless, lifted out of pettiness when we 
commune with a great man. Pitiful squabbles on nothing 
and bitter opposition on matters of importance continued 
to obstruct their intercourse until Drayton's death in 
September, 1779. 

The terms on which peace should be made occupied much of 
the time of Congress during the first half of 1779. There was 
little trouble in fixing upon substantially the boundaries which 
were ultimately obtained. The free navigation of the Missis- 
sippi, being complicated with the interests of Spain, was a 

^An unaddressed letter from Drayton, Sept. i6, 1778, No. 4237, in 
Emmett Col. in N. Y. Pub. Lib. The inference is strong that it was to 
Laurens. It offers no clue as to the subject of misunderstanding. 

' Paper of March 10, 1779, in Laurens MSS. signed by Laurens's secre- 
tary, Moses Young. 

3 Drayton to Laurens, Nov. 30, 1778, indicates no difference. 

4 Laurens to Washington, June 8, 1778, in MS. letters to Washington in 
Lib. of Cong. 



340 Life of Henry Laurens 

more tangled problem. This important matter, in the 
indifference and ignorance that were for some time yet to 
influence the national councils on Western questions, was less 
esteemed than the fisheries. March 24th Laurens, along with 
almost the whole Congress, refused to demand the free naviga- 
tion of the great river ; but on August 5th he, with almost as 
great a majority, voted in favor of the right. In September 
the guarantee of the Floridas to Spain was authorized in ex- 
change for the navigation of the Mississippi. 

The right of fishing on the New Foundland and Canadian 
banks and coasts, though not by any means the most important 
matter at stake, consumed the most time and aroused the warm- 
est debates. All desired the fishing rights, but with greatly 
differing earnestness. A minority were willing to continue the 
war if necessary to secure them in the fullest extent ; another 
minority were ready to acquiesce if England should entirely 
deny them. Laurens's sympathies were with the former party, 
in conformity with his principle of valuing all commercial 
privileges. He voted with the majority, March 24th, in mak- 
ing it an ultimatum that the Americans were to enjoy the right 
of fishing both on the coasts of Canada and the banks of 
New Foundland, provided France was willing to aid in con- 
tinuing the war with this object. But second thought con- 
vinced that the risks assumed in this decision were too great. 
New York led in the reaction, and on the 8th of May Gouver- 
neur Morris moved, with a long argumentative preamble, for 
terms waiving all reference to fishing rights. Laurens pre- 
pared an amendment that if England would not allow us the 
rights we would make no treaty of commerce with her; but 
the motion itself was voted out of order, and hence, doubt- 
less, we find no reference to Laurens's amendment in the 
Journals. 

Drayton took sides with those who thought it best to sur- 
render the fishing rights. Laurens preserved this disdainful 
memorandum of his remarks on the 8th of May : 

Mr. Drayton's very ignorant harangue on the article respecting the 
fishery. We had forfeited the pretended right when we withdrew our 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 341 

allegiance. ' — Of no use to any but three or at most four States. Never had 
been, never would be of use to Carolina, Georgia, &c., &c. 

In the almost daily flux of opinion on the question, Con- 
gress was more and more influenced by the difficulties to which 
a radical position might lead. The French minister intervened 
vigorously, and in necessary deference to the unwillingness of 
his government to continue the war one day for that end, 
Congress repealed its ultimatum and substituted its original 
resolution, "that in no case by the treaty of peace, the common 
right of fishery to be given up." Even Laurens recognized 
the necessity and concurred.^ 

What was intended as the final terms of the American de- 
mands was adopted August 4th, and a committee consisting of 
Gouverneur Morris, Laurens, Samuel Huntingdon, John Dick- 
inson and Thomas McKean was appointed to draft instruc- 
tions to the ministers. 

Laurens's position on the fisheries is one of the strongest 
evidences of his breadth of view and freedom from sectional 
bias. He valued them as training grounds for seamen who in 
time of war would be available for national defense, just as did 
Washington, who spoke of them as "the finest nursery of sea- 
men in the world. "^ His stand for the fisheries as the only 
member from the far South who stood with New England on 
the question gained him much hostility from his Southern 
associates. One or two Virginians took the same view and 
incurred the same unpopularity. 

R. H. Lee and H. Laurens are squinted at [wrote LoveU] as two monsters 
on the other side of the Susquehanna who pursue points in which the south- 
em States have no interest. * 

He was pained by the charge of subservience to New Eng- 
land, as appears from a letter near the end of his Congressional 
service in which, after speaking of his efforts to have Georgia 
and South Carolina recovered and frigates sent to their coasts, 
and of the opposition he met from New England, he says : 

' The identical argument used by Vergennes. — D. D. W. 

' Journals, xiv., 661; Bancroft, v., 323. 

3 Washington to Laurens, Nov. 14, 1778. 

* LoveU to John Adams, June 13, 1779, in Wharton, iii., 221. 



342 Life of Henry Laurens ' 

It has been falsely transmitted to Charles Town that I was too closely 
connected with the Eastern States. You have now proof of the contrary, 
and I glory in the reproach of being with no man, with no party, longer 
than he or they steers or steer by the pole star of reason, justice, reciprocity. 
When men diverge into the road of self interestedness, I walk no farther 
with them. In a word, I fear I have given oflfence to some of my friends. 
If it be so, I can't help it. I would rather offend my father than meanly or 
wittingly transgress against those principles. ' 

Laurens's position brought about the first of April a strong 
protest from the North Carolina delegates, who together with 
his colleague Drayton were already his opponents in the Deane- 
Lee quarrel. They submitted to him a copy of a letter ad- 
dressed to the Governor of their State in which they stated 
that Mr. Laurens had voted to continue the war for as full 
fishing rights as the Americans had enjoyed as colonists, even 
though France should refuse her aid.^ They declared the 
fisheries a local and unessential question and recommended 
that, in view of Mr. Laurens's vote, North Carolina recall any 
militia she might have in South Carolina and send no more 
there. Laurens wrote to Drayton on April 3d that he was 
open to reason and if convinced of error was ready to ' ' change 
my late sentiments. " Drayton, while expressing regret at his 
colleague's opinion, declined any conference and said that 
he would beg the North Carolinians not to send their letter to 
their Governor, an offer which only served to arouse Mr. 
Laurens's indignation and increase the existing estrangement 
between the South Carolinians. 

Here [he replied] you have drawn a line between us — henceforward I will 
neither receive from you a letter of controversy; but I will never withhold 
my voice in confirmation of any motion of yours nor my utmost support to 
your measures out of doors where we may be jointly concerned, which shall 
appear to be conducive to pubhc good. 

'Laurens to John Laurens, Sept. 21, 1779, in S. C. Hist. Mag:, vi., 
151-2. 

' I find no record in the Journals that Laurens or any other member voted 
to go so far as this. There may have been such a vote in committee of the 
whole. The fact that Laurens does not deny the allegation might be due 
to the fact that he directed his reply to the attempt to control his vote. 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 343 

The same day, April 4th, and in the same heat Laurens 
wrote to Governor Caswell, not knowing that the letter of the 
North Carolinians, which was intended from the first to influ- 
ence him rather than the person to whom it was addressed, was 
never sent. His opponents, he wrote, had obscured the merits 
of the fishery question and thrown into prominence their at- 
tempt to drive him from his position by threatening to sacrifice 
his State by abandoning it to the ravages of the enemy. Those 
have learned little of Laurens's character who cannot imagine 
his wrath at a concerted attempt to force his action or per- 
secute him for his opinions. His bold espousal of the unpopular 
cause of Colonel Grant in 1762, his defiance to the Stamp Act 
mob crossing their cutlasses across his breast, his humiliating 
every revenue officer in Charleston, from the Judge of 
Vice- Admiralty down, when they illegally seized his vessels, 
his avowal that he would forfeit his whole estate rather than 
submit to the King's "additional instructions" of 1770 in the 
Wilkes fund controversy, his defiance of the tyranny of 
the excited radical party in their position on the signing of the 
"association" in 1775, his duel with Grimk^ in the same year, 
his refusal to submit private letters when ordered by Congress 
in 1778, and his resignation of the presidency on a point of 
dignity, all marked him as an uncompromising and fearless foe 
of "all dogmatic and arbitrary dictates over men's con- 
sciences." But this was quite the most tyrannical appli- 
cation of the thumb-screw he ever had occasion to resent 
until his experiences as a prisoner in the Tower of London. 

Contenting himself with a brief defense of his votes to Gov- 
ernor Caswell, Laurens assailed his critics as follows: 

But admitting, as the gentlemen alledge, that I am in error, admitting 
that my supposed malcontent arises from "infatuation or something worse," 
does it follow that one State in our Union should be devoted to carnage and 
the interest of the other twelve essentially injured because South Carolina 
is so unhappy as to have one of her delegates wrong-headed or foul-hearted? 
Can we discern no medium? To speak a little freely. Sir, in my turn, these 
gentlemen of North Carolina appear to be under the government of passion 
— I will not say anything worse. 

Are men to be driven into measures by sophistry, misrepresentation and 
menaces? . . . 



344 Life of Henry Laurens 

It is possible I may have erred in judgment. The gentlemen in their 
attempt to correct the supposed error have committed acts which appear 
to me in the light of heinous crimes. They have attacked the freedom of 
debate and suffrage. They have menaced a free citizen in order to bias his 
vote. They have advised the abandonment of an innocent people to the 
rage of a powerful and merciless enemy. They have recommended measures 
which, if adopted, will endanger the safety of the United States; and have 
they not sacrificed their sacred faith and honor to pique and resentment? 

But, Sir, I will disclose a secret to your Excellency which I never promised 
to keep. It is a settled plan, and has been for some time past, "to hunt 
me down. " Were there any just cause, unjustifiable means to accomplish 
this pious purpose would not be resorted to. The "vantage ground of 
truth, ' ' Lord Bacon says, "is an incomparable pleasure ; 'tis an hill not to be 
commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene"; and believe me, 
Sir, I do consistently with truth add, that I have seen from thence, par- 
ticularly in the late instances, the wanderings and mists and tempests in 
the vale below.' 

So that his candor, on which he prided himself, might remain 
intact, Laurens sent a copy of his letter to the North Carolina 
delegates. They replied, with better sarcasm than sincerity, 
I am constrained to think, that they had not intended to force 
his vote or to menace South Carolina ; that they supposed that 
State could not be in need of North Carolina's assistance if 
one of her representatives so famed for information and judg- 
ment as Mr. Laurens could vote to make an object so unes- 
sential to the entire Union as the fisheries an ultimatum 
precedent to peace. 

The secret [they continue] of "a plan to hunt you down" is utterly 
unknown to us, and we hope you are mistaken. We cannot deem any 
individual amongst our body so dangerous as to be the object of a justifiable 
combination; nor do we know any one of importance sufficient so much to 
engage our efforts and attention, and we wish you to do us the justice to 
believe we are incapable of so unworthy a measure. 

The paragraph in your letter with the quotation from Lord Bacon is too 
figurative and mysterious for our comprehension. . . . 

The manner in which we address you, notwithstanding the asperity of 

' Laurens's letter is in The State Records of North Carolina, xiv., 
57, with slight variations from the copy in the Laurens MSS. in the S. C. 
Hist. Soc. Archives, which contain all the letters in the case. The North 
Carolina records do not contain the letter of the delegates, from which it 
appears that they did not send it. 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 345 

some expressions in your letter to Gov. Caswell applied to us, may 
sufficiently convince you of our good temper. 

[Laurens in replying on the 8th persisted that their conduct was] an 
unexampled outrage. . . . Here I entreat our correspondence on this sub- 
ject may expire. [This note, he tells us], put an end to the farce and 
produced much politeness and many assurances of esteem to Mr. Laurens. 
Whether they sent their letter to Gov. Caswell or not, I cannot tell nor did 
I give myself the trouble to enquire ; but I had kept my word and sent mine, 
because their apology did not come in time to prevent it. 

Mr. Laurens was much gratified at tlie outcome of the m^l6e. 
On the day of his reply to their last communication he wrote 
to John : 

The Censors from the Land of Turpentine took four days to devise an 
answer to my first letter. ... At first they kicked violently, for I saw one 
of them writing the morning after my letter was delivered two hours and a 
half with that letters (sic) before them, which had been previously scan'd 
by my colleague and the circle — who were all much agitated. . . . Since 
writing the above N. C. has been silent, and what is more extraordinary, 
my colleague has called upon me to confer on business of our constituents. ' 

During May Laurens imagined that he was the subject of a 
scheme on the part of Drayton to discredit him. April 29th, 
on the question of how large a requisition should be made upon 
the States, he says, Drayton left the casting of South Carolina's 
vote entirely to him.^ IVIay 19th, the question being still 
undecided, Drayton began to vote, voting first for $60,000,000, 
then for $45,000,000, against Laurens, who stood for a smaller 
figure, as he did not think South Carolina could afford to pay 
her proportion of even the smaller sum. Thus, he asserts, it 
was sought, as a part of the tactics of Drayton and the North 
Carolina delegates, to exhibit him as inconsistent and un- 
reasonable in insisting on fighting for the fisheries while 
refusing, in his own knowledge of the weakness of the States, 
to vote high taxes. It is hard to resist the conclusion that 
Drayton did time his votes in such a way as to emphasize 
the inconsistency of those who voted, as did Laurens, for 

' Laurens to John Laurens, April 8, 1779, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. 
Soc. 

^ The Journal states that the question was discussed that day but records 
no vote. 



346 Life of Henry Laurens 

a high fishing ultimatum and low taxes for carrying on the 
war. 

Mr. Laurens has been careful to preserve the record of yet 
another clash with his young colleague. Drayton moved that 
Congress celebrate the anniversary of independence by fire- 
works on Monday, July 5th, and cited the Olympic games as 
precedent. Laurens, for reasons of economy, opposed the 
plan with "zeal," proposing rather "fasting and mourning." 
"The Olympic game of Greece and other fooleries brought on 
the dissolution of Greece," he declared, and Mr. Drayton's 
proposition was "generally exploded."' 

Mr. Laurens himself has supplied the most fitting name for 
some of his own disputes — "school-boy jarrings. " Let us 
overlook these in the spirit in which he and his young associate 
at last came together under the shadow of death. About the 
loth of August Drayton was stricken with typhus fever. 

When I learned that he was really ill [wrote Laurens] I could not refrain 
from visiting him, his permission being previously obtained. When I 
approached his bed he clasped my hand, and wept affectingly; after recov- 
ering his voice, he signified great satisfaction at seeing me, and particularly 
requested I would write a statement of his case to Mrs. Drayton. The 
physicians think him dangerously ill; say he may live one or two weeks 
longer; that if he has strength for the discharge from an abscess in his side 
they shall raise him again, but that he will remain an invalid several months. ' 

He did not have the strength, and on September 3d, a few 
days short of thirty-seven years of age, fell asleep one of the 
most brilliant, daring and admirable characters of the Revolu- 
tion. ^ He was buried in old Christ Church graveyard in 
Philadelphia. Congress attended the funeral in a body and 
went into mourning for one month.'' 

' Congress resolved on Drayton's motion to have suitable sermons 
preached on Sunday the 4th and, apparently also on his motion, to have an 
"entertainment" on the 5th. 

2 Laurens to R. H. Lee, August 31, 1779, in Deane Papers, iv., 89-90. 
Original letter is in Lee Papers, Amer. Philosophical Soc, Philadelphia. 

3 Drayton's Memoirs, i., xxvi-xxvii. 

* Penn. Packet, Sept. 11, 1779. This is the authority also for the state- 
ment that he died of typhus fever, or as the paper puts it "a putrid fever. " 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 347 

It was in the midst of the debates on the fisheries and the 
personal quarrels resulting that Rivington's New York Gazette 
published Laurens's letter of August 27, 1778, to Governor 
Houston of Georgia, captured during the conquest of that 
State. ^ The most severe passage was as follows : 

Were I to unfold to you, sir, scenes of venality, peculation and fraud which 
I have discovered, the disclosure would astonish you; nor would you, sir, 
be less astonished were I, by a detail which the occasion wotild require, 
prove to you that he would be a pitiful rogue indeed who, when detected or 
suspected, meets not with powerful advocates among those who, in the 
present corrupt time, ought to exert all their powers in the support of these 
friend-plundered, much injured, and I was almost going to say, sinking 
States. 

May 14, 1779, Meriwether Smith of Virginia stated that 
the letter 

contained matter derogatory to the honor of Congress, injurious to the 
interest of these United States, and tending to destroy the confidence which 
the states should repose in that body ; and therefore he moved as a matter 
of privilege, that the said letter be read, and that Mr. Laurens be called on 
to declare whether he wrote that letter. ^ 

By a vote which bears strong marks of party lines, Congress 
ruled the motion to read the letter out of order, and the enquiry 
as to the authorship was defeated unanimously. The next 
morning Laurens, in order to place himself in a frank position, 
read a paper stating that he considered Smith's motion 
"irregular, unprecedented, and full of dangerous consequences, 
derogatory to the honor and dignity of Congress, and alarming 
to the free and independent citizens of these United States"; 
that if Mr. Smith had enquired in proper terms, he would have 
received "all the satisfaction that could have been desired by 
any man of true honor" ; that he did write a private letter to 
Governor Houston on the date named, and that should Con- 
gress request, he would submit a true copy, with the expecta- 
tion that it should be entered on the Journal. 

Laurens states in a memorandum that he thought it wrong 

' See letter p. 289 above. 

' The proceedings to be found in Journals, xiv., 588, 592, 610-13. 



348 Life of Henry Laurens 

for Congress to demand the letter, but that he would show it 
to any member upon request. 

This paper, by the vote of every member, was entered upon 
the Journal. Mr. Smith at once requested that Congress 
declare whether, in their opinion, his attempt deserved the 
description given it by Mr. Laurens; but the only answer was 
that they had not intended to express any opinion on that 
question. Three days later Smith renewed his request and 
defended his position in a clear, brief paper, but only succeeded 
in getting a refusal of its entry upon the Journal. Laurens 
tells us that some of the leading members congratulated him 
and said that such a letter should be sent to the Governor of 
every State ; so that we may say that in a sense he was vindi- 
cated. But the party complexion of the votes discounts some- 
thing of their judicial character. For instance, in voting on 
entering Smith's paper, the members voted almost to a man 
identically as they had two weeks before on the recall of 
Arthur Lee, and very nearly the same can be said of the vote 
on the fisheries ten days before, while the vote on the Deane-Lee 
matter three weeks after, though somewhat confused by party 
maneuvers, bears very much the same character. The con- 
clusion is therefore well-nigh irresistible that the sustaining of 
Mr. Laurens and the complete discomfiture of Mr. Smith were 
due largely to the determination of the New England party and 
their allies to stand by a valuable friend. 

Burke and Penn of North Carolina were among the most 
active supporters of Smith; but all three of these gentlemen 
opposed a motion three weeks later to notice a derogatory 
article in a paper by a public printer. "From the same po- 
luted source flow all their actions, " commented the acid Mr. 
Laurens; "... When they speak truth it is in order to de- 
ceive." Four months later this teapot tempest had so calmed 
that Smith "pressed me to-day to take a side of his chariot, 
brought me home and will eat sturgeon with me to-morrow. "^ 

As already noted, Congress was engaged in the summer and 
autumn of 1779 in reorganizing the diplomatic service. Lau- 
rens nominated John Adams for minister to negotiate peace 

' Laurens to John Laurens, Sept. 21, 1779, in 5. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 152. 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 349 

with England and Arthur Lee to negotiate a treaty with Spain. 
September 29th John Laurens was elected secretary to the 
minister to France; but, as those who knew him might have 
foretold, he declined to leave the field. A matter which came 
up during the general rearrangement was the compensation of 
ministers. When the first representatives were sent abroad in 
1776, Congress pledged itself to pay all expenses and in 
addition such sums as they might later consider just. The 
three commissioners drew amounts differing widely. Arthur 
Lee wrote that experience proved that £3000 was a necessity, 
and probably this influenced the committee to recommend that 
sum. Congress, however, fixed the pay at £2500 sterling per 
annum, to begin on their leaving their place of abode and con- 
tinue until three months after notice of recall.' Laurens 
voted against the pay being so high as £2500. "Men who 
are sincerely devoted to the service of their country," he 
comments, "will not accept of salaries which will tend to dis- 
tress it, " a principle which, we shall see, he fully lived up to 
when himself a minister. The salary remained at this until 
May 7, 1784, when it was reduced after the first of the follow- 
ing August to $9000.^ 

During 1779 desperate efforts were made to improve the 
financial situation. A part of these plans was to send a com- 
missioner to Holland to secure a specie loan of $10,000,000. 
John Adams, about to sail for Europe to negotiate with 
England, Langdon of New Hampshire, and Laurens were 
nominated, and on October 21st, Laurens was elected. No- 
vember 1st he was also elected to negotiate a treaty of amity 
and commerce with the United Netherlands as soon as he had 
sufficiently studied the situation on the ground to give Con- 
gress satisfactory information for definite action. His compen- 
sation was fixed at £1500 sterling and his secretary's at £500. ^ 

'Wharton, ii., 592, n., and Journals, xv., 1145. £1000 sterling was 
fixed for their secretaries. Laurens voted against this sum also. 

* Secret Journals, iii., 482. Laurens wrote his son that the salary recom- 
mended for him as secretary at Paris was £1000, but that he should oppose 
its being fixed at more than £700. — Laurens to John Laurens, Oct. 2, 1779, 
in 5. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 157. 

3 The action of Congress regarding Laurens's mission will be found in the 



350 Life of Henry Laurens 

Bancroft states very carelessly that "in December (1778) 
Laurens retired from the office of President of Congress in the 
expectation of being appointed to negotiate a loan in the 
Netherlands. "^ Wharton,^ misled perhaps by the same rum- 
ors which Bancroft had fallen upon, writes: 

On December i, 1778, he resigned as President, and his business affairs 
becoming deranged, and his position in Congress becoming one of difficulty 
for reasons to be presently noticed, he sought, as the papers of the day tell 
us, a foreign appointment. 

The mistake of December i for December 9 is immaterial, 
save as illustrating the carelessness with which, sad to say, 
such an able scholar as Dr. Wharton has dealt with Laurens 
in his brief sketch. It would have been nothing discreditable 
to seek a foreign appointment ; but aside from the fact that it 
is more agreeable to receive honors unsought, the statement 
that he sought this one seems contrary to fact. As to the 
explanation offered by Wharton, that he desired to mend his 
broken fortunes, it would be strange, indeed, if one who knew 
as Laurens did the heavy drafts upon one's private purse which 
service in Europe was likely to entail, who voted against 
salaries even as high as £2500, and who had had Congress to 
reduce by many thousands its proposed reimbursement for his 
expenses as President, should seek to go to Europe because of 
"his business affairs becoming deranged." His own compen- 
sation was fixed "at the rate of fifteen hundred pounds sterling 
per annum in full for his services and expenses, " just a thou- 
sand pounds below other ministers, we can hardly doubt in 
view of his recent votes and expressions at his own request as 
to what he considered proper. ^ Laurens was a rich man and 

Secret Journals, ii,, 283, 285, 290, 291, 314, 319 and 320, being for the dates 
October 26 and 30, November i and 5, 1779, June 20 and July 6 and 7, 1780, 
and under these dates in the new Journals, so far as published. In his 
Narrative Laurens states that he was commissioned to borrow money 
anywhere in Europe. This is in accord with his commission, though all 
the resolutions speak only of the United Provinces. ' V., 293. 

^ !•> 579- SUas Deane's charge that Laurens sought to prevent his 
appointment to the Netherlands and for almost a year schemed to have 
himself appointed (Deane Papers, v., 360, 371) is too silly for argument. 

3 Jours., Nov. I, 1779. 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 351 

with his combined experience as merchant and planter could 
have reaped a golden harvest, as did Robert Morris and many- 
others, by successful foreign trading during the war — a sin 
against patriotism which he looked upon as almost a crime. 
His estates and income suffered greatly from his public occupa- 
tion, as is testified by his correspondence at every period dur- 
ing and after the war, and hardly a more absurd explanation of 
his going to Europe could be offered than that, by thus still 
further neglecting his rich plantations, he was seeking to better 
his fortunes by grasping at a salary which had been compressed 
to the narrowest dimensions in accord with his own republican 
ideas. On the contrary, he was actually supporting his son, 
Colonel John Laurens, as an officer in the army, rather than 
have him draw pay from the public treasury' ; and his friend 
in Congress, James Lovell, desired to go abroad at the same 
time as Minister Laurens, in " a certain conviction that I shall 
have every friendly aid from you advisory and pecuniary."' 
Instead of seeking the appointment for its petty salary, 
Laurens accepted it with the firm resolve to receive no salary 
at all, and consented to have it paid him only after the mis- 
fortunes to be narrated below made it necessary.^ Dr. Whar- 
ton should have been saved from such an erroneous surmise 
if only by editing Laurens's letter of February 24, 1780,'' 
in which this supposedly crippled gentleman writes that, 
knowing of Congress's inability to supply him with funds, he 
had exported at his own expense from South Carolina £3200 
sterling worth of indigo, the sale of which in Europe would 
serve to support him and other representatives abroad. 
He also sent £4000 sterling ahead of him to England, to which 
he probably alludes in his "Narrative " in speaking of his ample 
funds in the hands of Mr. Manning. ^ 

^ See reference in sketch of John Laurens, in Appendix I. 

2 John Laurens to Henry Laurens, June i, 1778, in S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 
106, and October 23, 1778, ib., no. James Lovell to Henry Laurens, Dec. 
I5» I779» transcribed for Letters from Members of the Continental Cong. 
in Carnegie Inst., from Laurens MSS. in S. C. Hist. Soc. 

3 See reference in Chapter XXIV. * Wharton, iii., 516. 

s In a letter of June 20, 1783, to his nephew John Bremar, Laurens says 
that he has not received a farthing from his estates since he left South 



352 Life of Henry Laurens 

This picture, in imagining which we are invited to join, of the 
penniless politician seeking the public pap bottle to eke out a 
difficult existence which his own reduced circumstances would 
no long enable him to support, really translates us from the 
field of history into that of humor. The other reason for his 
desiring to get away — "his position in Congress becoming one 
of difficulty for reasons to be presently noted" — receives no 
specification further than the medley of misinterpreted facts 
and "it is said to be's" collected in the footnote two pages 
farther on. This suggests indeed a new and pleasing avenue 
of retreat for discredited politicians — to seek asylum from their 
woes by securing appointments to distinguished positions at 
the hands of the body in which their position has become un- 
tenable. Citing the Houston letter as evidence of his unpopu- 
larity is hardly to the point, in view of the fact that Congress 
allowed Laurens every privilege he desired in this matter and 
turned down his antagonist in a manner strongly suggesting 
displeasure at one who had presumed to attack a man who was 
something of a favorite. Strange, too, that this down-and- 
out gentleman should have continued to be elected at the 
head of the ticket to the most important special committees 
and on his departure should have been accompanied from 
the city until the Schuylkill intervened by an affectionate 
procession of the leading men of the State and Continental 
governments.^ 

Carolina; that he had sent upwards of £4000 sterUng before him to Eng- 
land, and had been plundered of aU but £606, and that frequently he had 
to economize sharply. £1000 or £1500 worth of the indigo was lost. 

Another side-light on Laurens's means at the time of his going abroad is the 
curious letter from James LoveU, Dec. 15, 1779, just referred to, expressing 
his willingness to be sent as secretary of Legation in Paris, partly because 
"2d is a certain conviction that I shall have every friendly aid from you 
advisory and pecuniary, and the 3d is that you will probably succeed 
* in case of that event which makes it necessary to have 
a faithful hand now near him at his advanced age. " 

' For striking instances of his election to committees dealing with the 
most vital public business, see Journals for December 14, 17 and 28, 1778, 
and Oct. 4, 1779. The Penn. Gazette of Nov. 10, 1779, and the Packet 

* Franklin. 



Last Months in Congress, 1779 353 

But why continue to establish the obvious? Laurens's 
own statement to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, February 
24, 1780, may conclude the matter: 

My long delay' is a subject of grief to me, but Congress will be pleased to 
recollect that I made my coming to Charleston in order to present myself 
at the tribunal of my country, the sine qua non of my acceptance of a 
new mission.^ 

Leaving Philadelphia November 9th, he journeyed overland 
to Charleston, and it was while thus "before the tribunal of my 

of Nov. 1 1 contained the following notice identical in wording except that 
"Yesterday " in the former is " On Tuesday last " in the latter: 

"Yesterday the Hon. Henry Laurens, Esq; sat out on his journey to 
Charlestown, South-Carolina, from whence it is said he will embark, to 
execute, at one of the principal Courts of Europe, an important trust com- 
mitted to him by Congress. The great ability and strict integrity with 
which this Gentleman filled the important station of President of Congress 
acquired him universal esteem and respect, and his truly patriotic attention 
to the rights of the several States gained him the warmest affection of all 
who knew him, and of the people of Pennsylvania in particular. — Several 
Members of Congress, and a number of the principal Officers of the State, 
waited on him as far as the Lower Ferry on Schuylkill." 

The identity of wording may be due to one paper's copying from the 
other, but might perhapsbe explained by somefriendof Laurens's having sup- 
plied the copy to both papers. An interesting incident indicative of esteem 
for Laurens was the naming in his honor a fort on the Tuscarawas river in 
western Ohio as an advance post against the Indians around Detroit. 
Winsor, vii., 455-6, states that it was there. The name was not unlikely 
connected with the fact that Laurens's friend Gen. Lachlan Mcintosh was 
engaged in that region. Fort Mcintosh lies to the east, upon the Ohio 
just before it leaves Pennsylvania. Winsor, vii., 455-6, states the date of 
the building of the latter as 1779 and of the former as 1788. Whether 1788 
is an error for 1778 or whether Fort Laurens was rebuilt in that year I 
cannot say; but during Gen. Brodhead's expedition in 1779 it contained a 
hundred men. (Mag. o/^mer. /fw/. iii., 656, Nov., 1879.) Washington's 
opinion that its evacuation would encourage the savages around Detroit 
was the only reason for holding the difficult post. (Penn. Archives, vii., 
569. See also General Index.) I thank Dr. I. Minis Hays, Secretary of the 
American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, for bringing Fort Laurens 
to my attention and supplying the references. 

' In sailing for Europe. * Wharton, iii., 517. 

23 



354 Life of Henry Laurens 

country" that he was, in February, 1780, for the fotirth time 
elected to represent his State in Congress.^ 

Thus terminated a career of two years and a half in Congress, 
marked throughout by great energy, ability, and patriotic 
devotion to the public good, and leaving little to regret save 
the insincere features on his part along with the rest of Congress 
in the breaking of the Saratoga Convention, his lack of impar- 
tiality in the Deane-Lee affair, his too ready and drastic criti- 
cisms and his petty quarrels with Drayton. His membership 
covered that period of the Revolution which has proved the 
most fatal to civic reputations and the most set with snares for 
men not armed with a high quality of sagacity, fairness and 
honor. Into none of these snares did he fall, and on some very 
critical occasions his action was such as to secure him a high 
place among the patriots of the Revolution. None of his 
contemporaries surpassed him in his broad national patriotism 
and hberahty of view, untouched with sectional prejudice or 
selfishness, and probably none went beyond him in the steady 
devotion with which he disregarded family cares and comfort 
and material interests in giving his whole attention to public 
duty. It is true that he did not possess the commanding 
genius which could rally a loyal party upon a definite progres- 
sive platform ; but the same must be said of every other man 
then in public life, and it is to be doubted whether any medicine 
of genius could have much hastened the natural progress of the 
country through the disorders of that period of its develop- 
ment. He had enjoyed the fullest measure of confidence of all 
the ablest and purest pubHc servants both in the army and 
Congress, save a few from whom he was unhappily separated 
by the factionalism of the times, while his character led the 
Royalists to wonder that he should keep with abandoned rebels. 
As he had gone to Congress and continued there at great per- 
sonal sacrifice solely from a sense of duty, so now under the 
same circumstances he was to enter upon a stage of his career 
marked by still greater losses and with mental and physical 
suffering added. 

' Gazette of the State of S. C, Feb. 9, 1780. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

MISSION TO THE NETHERLANDS AND IMPRISONMENT IN THE 
TOWER OF LONDON, I780-8I 

ON the 28th of October Congress ordered the purchase of 
not over 100,000 pounds of leather in South CaroHna 
for the northern army; Laurens, about to leave for his home, 
offered his services in the business. As the turn in naval 
operations delayed his intended early embarkation for Europe, 
he was able to attend upon his duties as a member of the State 
Legislature/ January 24, 1780, he wrote the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs that no vessel had sailed for Europe since his 
arrival, but that he had now engaged passage from Charleston 
on the French ship Chimere, expected soon to sail.* Dis- 
appointed in this and the enemy rapidly investing Charleston, 
he reported, February 14th, that he planned to take passage 
from North Carolina, leaving his own affairs to "exceeding 
heavy losses" on account of "my absence at this critical 
juncture, " when the British were just beginning the campaign 
which was soon to result in the fall of the capital, the subjuga- 
tion of the State and, save the Indian massacres, the most 
harrowing portion of the Revolution in any part of the country. ^ 
Ten days later he had actually placed his baggage on board a 
specially provided swift vessel in Charleston harbor to sail 
next day; but "that next day and another passed away with- 
out effect, when there appeared at anchor in front of Charles- 
town harbor about thirteen sail of the enemy's ships of war. " 
He therefore went to Georgetown and secured a small schooner 

' S. C. House Journal, for i^^g-80, MS., 127, 137, etc. 

' Wharton, iii., 468. 3 Jb., 494, 516. 

355 



356 Life of Henry Laurens 

to take him either to Wilmington, Martinique or Chesapeake 
Bay as circumstances might dictate. Hearing that there was 
"an exceeding good vessel bound for France" at Wilmington, 
he sailed there, only to find the ship unready. From this 
place on the 14th of May he sent to his colleagues in Phila- 
delphia the news, received the day before, of the disasters 
immediately preceding the fall of Charleston and took occasion 
to remark that the State could have been saved if his plan of 
arming trusty negroes had been adopted.^ Being compelled 
by the vicissitudes of travel at that period to look about for 
another means of passage, and being informed that an armed 
French vessel was to sail from Norfolk for Lorient, France, he 
ordered his schooner to carry him there; but the captain and 
owner, regardless of their contract, refused to run the risk of 
capture in those waters. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce Butler wel- 
comed his request to be allowed to sail early in June with 
them,^ but this miscarried, and nothing was left but to repair 
to Philadelphia by land. The indigo, however, which he had 
collected to ship abroad for raising hard cash for the expenses 
of himself and perhaps other public ministers, he sent by his 
disobedient schooner to Cadiz. Seventeen barrels arrived in 
safety, but sixteen were captured.^ 

Laurens now repaired to Congress, partly on account of 
missing ships to the southward, but also on account of the 
great change wrought in public affairs and his own private 
fortunes by the capture of Charleston and the probable 
overrunning of the Carolinas. Arriving the last night in 

^ Authority for events since Feb. 14, mainly Laurens to Committee of 
Correspondence for Foreign Affairs, July i, 1780, in Archives of the Depart- 
ment of State of the United States Government, vol., 89, p. 193. A full 
account of the question of negro troops will be found in the sketch of Col. 
John Laurens in Appendix I. 

^ Laurens MSS. in Hist. Soc. Penn., P. Butler to Laurens, June 9, 1780. 

3 To be exact there were 32 barrels and i firkin of indigo. At his request. 
Congress waived any rights which his previous offer might have established 
and allowed him to ship it on his own account. If he ever recovered the 
loss from the insurer, it was after long delay. — Jours., xvii., 583 and 587. 
LaurenstoLeCouteulx&Co.,May 17, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. 
Soc. 



Mission to the Netherlands 357 

June, the next day he made a full report to Congress, closing 
with the words : 

Before I conclude, permit me, gentlemen, to observe and to assure you 
that a constant and steady attention to my public duties has been extremely 
detrimental to my private interests — by a personal application to the latter 
I might have saved as many articles in moveables from my estates as would 
have yielded me many thousand pounds sterling, these have been since 
taken or destroyed by the British troops or are now in their possession 
and I am at this moment reduced to such circumstances as would be 
grievous to a man who had not sincerely devoted his life and fortune to 
the service of his country. ' 

There appears reason to believe that he sought, or at least 
suggested, to be relieved of his mission ; but Congress resolved 
that it was highly expedient that he set out for Europe as 
early as possible. In view of the loan's having been 
entrusted to John Adams and Laurens's new instructions being 
to investigate conditions and report information to guide in 
forming a treaty of amity and commerce, it appears that the 
latter was the chief reason in now requiring his service.^ 

The fact that Congress resolved on July loth for the most 
speedy exchange of John Laurens, a prisoner since the fall of 
Charleston, suggests that this object may have been connected 
with his father's presence in Philadelphia. ^ 

Purchasing at his own expense bills of exchange for 9640 
livres in addition to the bills for 22,500 livres delivered him for 
his salary,'* Laurens prepared to sail upon the Mercury, a 
brigantine of a crew of fourteen men and sixty-two tons burden 
belonging to Congress. ^ The Mercury was regarded as being 
as fast as any vessel in America, but was so small as to be at 
the mercy of any enemy who should succeed in coming within 
shot range. A sixteen-gun sloop was directed to accompany 

' Archives of Dept. of State as cited above. 

''Jours., xvii., 590, 594, for July 7, 1780; Sparks's Dip. Cor., ii., 461, 
n. ; Secret Jours., ii., 316, 320. ^ Jours., xvii, 598. 

4 Stevens's Facsimiles, 943. Stevens's work contains 71 facsimiles of 
documents in the British Public Record Office concerned with Laurens's 
capture and imprisonment, Nos. 920-970, in vol. x. 

s lb., 930, 



358 Life of Henry Laurens 

her as far as the banks of New Foundland and Laurens was 
instructed to order two other war vessels expected up the bay 
to join the convoy; but their captains failed to obey, and 
Laurens, after having left Philadelphia August 13th, and hav- 
ing waited lower down for several days for their promised 
return, put to sea. 

A pathetic interest attaches to the voyage, as his gallant 
soldier son, promptly paroled from his recent capture in 
Charleston, had hastened to Philadelphia and accompanied 
his father down the river as far as Fort Penn.^ Never again 
were these dear companions, as close in friendship as in blood, 
to look into each other's eyes. 

The sixteen-gun convoy greatly impeded his progress, and 
as she was at best but a slight defense, when six days out she 
was ordered home. On the 3d of September, on the banks of 
New Foundland, the Mercury was captured after a five or six 
hours' chase by the Vestal, twenty-eight guns. Laurens burnt 
or sunk all papers which he considered of any importance, but 
neglected a number which he considered of no significance. 
Many of these were purely indifferent private letters, but 
unfortunately there were also a number of papers, some of at 
least quasi-public character, written by Dutchmen and calcu- 
lated to be of help in his mission, such as a list of Dutch gentle- 
men friendly to the American cause and a draft of a proposed 
treaty. At the solicitation of his secretary the minister 
finally threw the balance of his papers overboard in a weighted 
sack ; but the air buoyed up the mouth until the British hooked 
it out of the sea. The British captain was of Laurens's opin- 

' Laurens's MS. diary of his voyage, capture and imprisonment, evidently 
the original from which he later expanded his published "Narrative." 
Of the many evidences of its being an actual day by day record which might 
be mentioned I will only call attention to the fact that its dates for inter- 
views, etc., agree with those in the papers in the British Public Record 
Office as reproduced in Stevens's Facsimiles. The diary, a part of the Ford 
Collection in the N. Y. Pub. Lib., is in pencil, 27 pages, beginning Aug. 13, 
1780, and ending with "alii-" on Dec. 6, 1781. Evidently an actual diary; 
is very brief and employs many abbreviations. It frequently gives inter- 
esting personal information which was omitted in the published "Narra- 
tive. ' ' Its 2900 wrods are expanded to 1 1 ,000 in the ' ' Narrative. " 



Mission to the Netherlands 359 

ion ; for he remarked that he had evidently destroyed his mail, 
as these papers were of no value. This was not, however, the 
view of the ministry. They are said to have paid £500 for 
having them sorted, besides the cost of binding them in 
eighteen handsome folio volumes, thirteen of which, well-worn 
by time and handling but still showing the beautiful tooling 
of the binder, are still to be seen in possession of the South 
Carolina Historical Society. In this shape they were returned 
to their owner after a new war had emerged like an evil genius 
from between their covers.^ 

The only paper of which any note was taken was the draft 
of a proposed treaty of amity and commerce between the 
Netherlands and the United States when the independence of 
the latter should be established, drawn up by William Lee of 
Virginia and John de Neufville of Amsterdam. Though Lee 
was in the employ of Congress, he had acted in this matter 
on his own initiative; and though de Neufville proceeded 
under the instructions of Van Berkel, Grand Pensionary of 
Amsterdam, that official was entirely unauthorized to take 
such a step.^ Laurens had asked for a copy of this and had 
received the original as a paper of no authority which had 
never even been read in Congress. Yet it served England 
as a very convenient pretext for declaring war upon the 
Netherlands. 

The Van Berkel paper, irritating as it was to English pride, 

I The Lee- Van Berkel draft and others of the captured papers bearing on 
Dutch-American relations, together with England's demands made upon 
the Netherlands in consequence, are in the Annual Register for 1780, pp. 
356-73. Still others are in Stevens's Facsimiles. 

The insignificance of some of the papers is humorously illustrated by the 
following from Laurens's letter of May 22, 1782, to Edward Bridgen, in the 
Laurens MSS. in the L. I. Hist. Soc, thanking a gentleman for his trouble 
in securing their return: 

' 'One of the first I cast my eye upon is a letter from my servant in Charles 
Town informing me (when I was in George Town) he had sent the old dry 
cow and the jack ass to Mepkin Plantation and had ordered a milch cow 
to be sent down to Col. Laurens. — Your Lord Hillsborough & Co. " must 
have reUshed having these papers bound at 500 guineas expense and pouring 
over every line of them. 

* Winsor, vii., 67. 



360 Life of Henry Laurens 

cannot be regarded as the real cause of the war. Her conduct 
for months had indicated that she meant to crush the Dutch, 
who, as the principal neutral carriers, were of the greatest 
service to the French and Americans. Though united by 
treaties which ought to have guaranteed their remaining at 
peace if treaties alone could ever perform that service, the 
two powers had for months been drifting towards war. The 
provinces denied that England was justified in claiming their 
aid as guaranteed under certain conditions against the French ; 
and England forbade their trade with the enemy, though it 
was protected by treaty. Each side in effect strained the 
interpretation of the treaty in its own interest so far as to make 
it of practically no significance. The Dutch gave deep offense, 
too, by allowing John Paul Jones to remain ten days in the 
Texel with his prizes after his victory over the Serapis and 
the Countess of Scarborough. But the sorest point with the 
British was the service of the Dutch West India island of 
St. Eustatius as the most valuable base of supplies from which 
the Americans could draw. They sent there vast quantities 
of products for shipment to Europe and received through that 
door a great part of their foreign supplies, particularly gun 
powder. The warehouses along the harbor of the little island, 
which had at the beginning of the war only a hundred and 
twenty white inhabitants and 1200 blacks, came by 1780 to 
bring an annual rental of £ i ,200,000. ^ The Dutch disregarded 
the rules against aiding belligerents, and the guns of Fort 
Orange fired the first foreign salute to the American flag. 
England, maddened to be bafiled by this speck in the ocean 
three miles by six in size, was moved to strike by both hate and 
avarice. The forcible seizure of Dutch ships trading to 
France continued. Spain, on the other side, after joining the 
war against England, began the same practice by seizing two 
Russian wheat vessels on the pretext that their cargoes might 
be smuggled into Gibraltar. Empress Catharine, already 
viewing the seizure of neutral vessels with displeasure, promptly 
organized the "Armed Neutrality of the North," which was 

'J. F. Jameson: St. Eustatius in the American Revolution; American 
Hist. Rev., via., 683. A very interesting and valuable article. 



Mission to the Netherlands 361 

soon joined by the other Northern powers and later by prac- 
tically every neutral state in Europe/ The rules which 
Catharine announced that she was determined to maintain by 
force were as follows : 

Neutral ships shall be allowed to pass freely from port to 
port of either warring or neutral countries ; 

Free ships make free goods, except contraband of war, which 
is to be confined strictly to arms and munitions of war ; 

No blockade to be legal unless effectively maintained. 

The Netherlands withheld their accession in the hope of 
obtaining in addition the Russian guarantee of the Dutch 
East India possessions. ^ England was meanwhile injuring the 
Dutch carrying trade by every means in her power short of 
actual war. Prudence forbade making war on the republic as a 
punishment for her intention of joining the Armed Neutrality 
or for practicing its rules. At this juncture occurred the 
capture of the Van Berkel treaty among Laurens's papers, 
which furnished the plausible pretext which England needed — 
a pretext she resolved not to be deprived of by any explanation 
or apology. She demanded of the Dutch a disavowal of the 
treaty "and an exemplary punishment upon the pensionary 
Van Berkel and his accomplices. " The disavowal was prompt 
and ample, but to punish Van Berkel, the authorities of the 
United Provinces explained, they had no power. The demand 
was renewed; but the ministry, learning that the States 
General were taking steps to enter the Armed Neutrality, 
declared war on December 20th and swept into their net 
15,000,000 guilders' worth of captures in European waters 
and £4,000,000 worth of booty in St. Eustatius. 

The Dutch appealed to Russia to defend them in a war made 
upon them for maintaining the principles of the Armed 
Neutrality. England, with the duplicity common in such 

^ The treaty establishing what is known as the "Armed Neutrality" is 
in the Annual Register for 1781, p. 300. Signed between Russia and Den- 
mark July 19, 1780; Sweden joined July 21 ; States General of the Nether- 
lands accepted Nov. 20, 1780, and signed Jan. 5, 1781. 

* Bancroft, v., 360, indicates that this was the action of the stadholder, 
taken as a means of serving England, to whose side he was committed. 



362 Life of Henry Laurens 

cases, declared that the war was due to the projected American 
treaty, and Russia, with the selfishness equally common, 
accepted this explanation and declined to speak the word which 
might have saved the Dutch from their fate and gone far to 
establish a more enlightened code of maritime rights. 

Laurens was much blamed for not destroying the Van Berkel 
treaty. He justified himself by arguing that no /air-minded per- 
son could consider the paper an occasion for war. But Laurens 
knew that the England of 1780 was not calm and fair-minded; 
he had in the Burgoyne affair been guided by his opinion that 
she was capable of any chicanery or violation of faith, and 
hence he cannot be acquitted of serious error of judgment in 
failing to protect his friends from every contingency by destroy- 
ing the paper at the first suggestion of his secretary, Moses 
Young, who proved himself in this case the better diplomat. 
The lack of this timely pretext to England might have saved 
the Dutch from being attacked or have assured them the 
assistance of Russia.^ 

Laurens was taken first to the Admiral at St. John's, New 
Foundland. His treatment was as courteous as gallant officers 
could make it, even when in response to the toast of George III. 
he proposed George Washington. Some advised him when 
sailing to stop in London at the New Hotel. The name re- 
minded him of another "New. " I smiled, he says, and asked, 

If there was not a hotel in London called Newgate. 
Newgate! [exclaimed two or three;] they dare not send you there. 
Well, gentlemen, wait a few weeks and you will hear of the hotel where 
I shall be lodged.^ 

The generous treatment at the hands of officers, such a 
contrast to what he was to receive from ministers, continued 

' The publication of the draft treaty in the Netherlands raised a perfect 
storm of pamphlets, in the midst of which John Adams, who was there, 
issued a series of letters on the rise and progress of the American Revolution 
which served considerably to enlighten and win Dutch opinion on the sub- 
ject. — Winsor, vii., 68, n. 

* Throughout the account of Laurens's capture and imprisoimient my 
authority is his published "Narrative" in vol. i. of the Collections of the 
S. C. Hist. See. where not otherwise specified. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 363 

as he was carried on board the Fairy to Dartmouth. Thence 
he was taken to London, stopping three nights in Exeter.^ 
There he was urged to avail himself of his ample opportunity 
of escape; but he refused to abuse the confidence of his 
conductor, which he regarded as binding upon his honor as a 
parole. Besides, he had thought from the moment of his 
capture that he might be of service to his country in England . 

Late on October 5th he arrived in London, where his treat- 
ment immediately became rigorous to the point of absurdity. 
The next morning he was taken before a number of the minis- 
ters and after protesting against the violation of international 
law in imprisoning an ambassador, and refusing under the 
obligations of that character to answer questions, he was 
committed to the Tower of London under suspicion of high 
treason committed at Philadelphia and on the high seas.^ 
He was sent by a private route, as there was rumor of a rescue. 
The reason for thus confining him as a state prisoner on sus- 
picion of high treason was explained by Lord North in Parlia- 
ment, December 20, 1781, to be the necessity of preventing his 
liberation; since, if he had been confined as a prisoner of war, 
he would long ago have been exchanged and prosecuting the 
business to which he had been assigned by Congress. ^ 

Laurens's treatment in the Tower varied with different 
persons. Major Gore, the residing Governor, was very 
arbitrary; General Vernon, the Lieutenant-Constable, was 
very courteous, and the lesser people all treated him with such 
kindness as they were able. He was lodged in the house of 
James Futerell, one of the wardens who was set over him/ 
and such a warm attachment sprang up with the family that 
he left a legacy to Mrs. Futerell, and Miss Futerell spent 
apparently a long period as a "very dear and valuable friend" 

' The London newspapers, quoted by Peter Force in the Historical Mag- 
azine, xi., 130 (March, 1867), say that Lt. Norris was forced to stop at 
Newton Abbot on account of his prisoner's illness; Laurens says nothing of 
stopping there, and seems to imply that the stop-over at Exeter was due the 
Norris's desire to see friends. 

* Stevens's Facsimiles. 

J Parliamentary History, xxii., 877. 

* Laurens's MS. diary in Ford Collection, N. Y. Pub. Lib. 



364 Life of Henry Laurens 

in the family of Laurens's daughter Mrs. Ramsay after the 
war/ After being confined over a year, the prisoner wrote, 
"The wardens who were set to watch and incommode me are 
my faithful domestics." This perhaps helps to explain the 
contradictory reports which reached the public; for he might 
be represented as regarding his treatment as cruel or kindly 
according as he referred to those in authority or their humbler 
servants. 

As he was entering the warden's house very sick, he heard 
the remark, 

Poor old gentleman, bowed down with infirmities. He is come to lay 
his bones here. 

My reflection was [he says], 

I shall not leave a bone with you. 

He received then no medical attention, though his health 
was so low as to cause some of the attendants to fear for his life 
and kindly offer for his reading a work much used by serious- 
minded folk in those days, Drelincourt upon Death.^ Others 
less spiritual but more spirited derided him the morning after 
his arrival by playing "Yankee Doodle," which, he says, 
aroused my ' ' sublime contempt and rather made me cheerful . " ^ 

Upon the news of his imprisonment becoming known, 
wealthy English friends at once sent offers of all the money he 
should need, but these, it appears, were not allowed to reach 
him. He received promptly, however, from his dear friend 

' Ramsay's Memoirs of Martha Laurens Ramsay, 236, 240. Laurens's 
will in Charleston county records. 

Moses Young seems not to have been imprisoned. Laurens released him 
from his engagement as his secretary in May, 1782. Whether Laurens's 
negro servant George was allowed to serve him in the Tower does not appear 
clearly. The master left him at Amsterdam with some articles in June, 
1782, they and he to be shipped to America. — Laurens's MSS. in L. I. 
Hist. Soc, Laurens to Young, May, 1782 ; to Edward Bridgen, July 4, 1782, 
and to (Gervais?) June 14, 1782; Laurens to Hillsborough, Oct. 6, 1780, 
in Stevens's Facsimile. 

' Drelincourt was a French Protestant clergyman (i 595-1 669). His 
book is marked by extraordinary imagery, eloquence, and power. He was 
Martha Laurens's favorite author. 

3 Laurens's MS. diary in Ford Col., N. Y. Pub. Lib. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 365 

William Manning, whose daughter John Laurens had married, 
an expression of his sympathy at his misfortune, of which 
Manning had been immediately informed by Justice Addison/ 

After a week's solicitations, Manning obtained through the 
intercession of the Bishop of Worcester an order to "suffer 
Mr. William Manning, Miss Manning, Mr. Henry Laurens 
Junr and a child of three years old to have access for once only 
at a convenient hour, and in presence of yourself, the gentle- 
man gaoler, or other such person as you shall appoint to Henry 
Laurens Esqr."^ The interview, which was allowed to last 
only thirty minutes, occurred the next day in the presence of 
three guards. His friends found him "very ill of a lax, much 
ematiated, and bitterly invective against the people here for his 
harsh treatment. " Laurens was deeply affected at the meet- 
ing with his seventeen year old son whom he had not seen 
since leaving England s^x years before to take his part in the 
troubles of his native country in whose service he had come to 
such a point, and his grandchild whom he now saw for the 
first time after so recently bidding his last farewell to her father, 
whom she had never seen, or if at all, only as a newborn babe.^ 

The captive minister was not long in availing himself of the 
opportunity of influencing British opinion. About two weeks 
after he had entered the Tower a woman offered to deliver 
safely his letters, and through her he carried on in pencil a 
wide correspondence with his friends and some of the "rebel 
newspapers ' ' in London . His ' ' history of the apostate Arnold' ' 
gave much offense ; the articles in general excited suspicion and 
one of the ministry remarked that "they smelt strong of the 

' Stevens's Facsimiles, 946, and Laurens's MS. diary in Ford Col., N. Y. 
Pub. Lib. 

^Extract from the warrant of permission, Oct. 13, 1780, in Stevens's 
Facsimiles, 949. 

3 Stevens's Facsimiles, 952; Digges to Franklin, Oct. 17, 1780, in Frank- 
lin's Works, X., 372-4. I may remark here that during the next few weeks 
Laurens received several visits of an entirely inconsequential character 
which he omits to mention in his Narrative. 

His son Henry was attending Warrington school and when not there lived 
with Mr. Manning, who says to Lord Hillsborough he " has been my ward 
some years." — Stevens's Facsimiles, 970, 971, 957, 961. 



366 Life of Henry Laurens 

Tower." Laurens had in fact converted his prison into an 
outpost in the enemy's country. 

Immediately upon learning of Laurens's imprisonment 
Franklin took steps to serve him in any way possible. The 
ministry at the beginning gave out that the distinguished pris- 
oner was well treated, but Manning's first visit served to expose 
this deception. 

It is a strange thing to go forth [a correspondent wrote Franklin], but 
it is the generally received opinion that the orders for such harsh treatment 
were in consequence of an intimation from the first Man in this country 
now generally known by the appellation of White Eyes. 

Every appearance indicates that this Mr. White Eyes is determined on 
prosecuting the American war vigorously.' 

Laurens's account of his treatment is that it was accompan- 
ied by numerous petty vexations and was so harsh as to wreck 
his health. Governor Gore, he was informed, declared "I 
am determined to expose him, " and certainly the report was 
not contradicted by his conduct. The prisoner was given the 
most conspicuous quarters, but he defeated his persecutor here 
by screening his windows with vines, ^ though he could not 
escape many vexations which Gore even exceeded his authority 
to inflict. By the order of the ministers he was kept in the 
sight of two warders every moment day and night, was denied 
pen and ink, the receipt or sending of any letter, or access to 
any person. His outer room, Franklin's agent reported, was 
not over twelve feet square, and adjoined a dark, close bed- 
room, "both indifferently furnished and a few books on his 
table. " For everything, even room rent, he was required to 

'Intercepted letter of "Wm. Singelton Church" to Franklin, Oct. 17, 
1780, in Stevens's Facsimiles, 952. I cannot be sure whether "White- 
Eyes" refers to North or George III., though it is probably the latter. The 
same day to the same effect, Thos. Digges to Franklin in Franklin's Works, 
X., 372-4. William Singleton Church was simply the pseudonym of 
Franklin's rascally, thieving secret agent in England, Thos. Digges, and 
not unlikely his letter's being "intercepted" by the government was a piece 
of his treachery. A copy of the letter reached Franklin and is in his Works, 
X., 372-4. 

^ Same quarters, I have seen it stated, as formerly occupied by John 
Wilkes, though I do not know the truth of this. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 367 

pay out of his own pocket, which drew from him the comment, 
"Whenever I caught a bird in America I found a cage and 
victuals for it." 

It does not appear that the prisoner long lacked medical at- 
tention; for he records, December, 1780, the "30th Battalion 
Surgeon bled me, having been very ill the preceding night." 
A Dr. Grant was sent from outside March 15, 1781, but 
this was merely a ruse for spying upon him. 

Franklin having been informed in reply to his inquiry that 
Laurens's treatment was outrageous, wrote, November yth, 
to his old friend Sir Guy Cooper, Secretary of the Treasury of 
Great Britain,^ asking his interposition to secure Laurens's 
liberty on parole, or at least such air, exercise and comforts as 
were proper. Cooper wrote to Gen. Vernon, the Lieutenant 
of Lord Cornwallis, Constable of the Tower, and thus the high- 
est in authority, who replied, November 27th, that he had 
inquired in person of Mr. Laurens if he had any cause of 
complaint, and if he used his recent liberty of walking. He re- 
plied, says Vernon, "that he received ever}'- reasonable indul- 
gence since his confinement, and that, by the liberty allowed 
him of walking, he found his health much mended." The 
inconsistency between this and Laurens's own account may be 
in part explained. Governor Gore had consistently harassed 
his prisoner, while his superior. General Vernon, had uniformly 
behaved with a courtesy which Laurens never failed to acknowl- 
edge. Vernon had obtained by his peisonal application to 
the ministers permission for Laurens "to walk in the Tower 
grounds. " Gore without authority had refused to allow him 
the liberty except where he would be exposed to public gaze, 
until the i6th of November, when he assigned an unexposed 
walk before and within the armory. Here Laurens walked 
almost every day until December 3d, when the privilege was 
withdrawn. His remarks to Vernon, November 26th or 27th, 
come therefore within this brief period and were expressive of 
a proper gratitude to the author of this kindness, and not 
intended to give outsiders any idea of his situation. Cooper 
forwarded Vernon's letter to Franklin, who naturally relied 

' Franklin's Works, viii., 165. 



368 Life of Henry Laurens 

upon it for many months as proving Laurens's good treatment, 
"hearing nothing afterwards to the contrary" for about a 
year. Laurens remarks that the Lieutenant Constable, Gener- 
al Vernon, knew very little of his treatment, except as to his 
own behavior.^ 

A prompt and generous attempt at aid came from the 
Marchioness de Lafayette. October i8, 1780, she wrote the 
Count de Vergennes : 

The capture and detention of Mr. Laurens in England has sensibly affected 
me. He is the intimate friend of M. de Lafayette, and took care of him 
during the time of his wound in a manner truly touching. His misfortune 
seems to me overwhelming, and when -we consider the high station he has 
held in America, it is probable that it may become still more so. I know 
not if any means can be found to prevent it, or even to soften the actual 
rigors of his captivity; but I am persuaded, sir, if there are any such, that 
they will be known to you. Should it be possible, let me entreat you 
earnestly to put them in use. ^ 

And the warm-hearted young woman proceeds to pour out 
advice as to who might help in the matter. The efforts of 
Martha and John Laurens were of course also without any 
result. Congress also undertook Laurens's release and the 
President notified Franklin, January 4, 1 781, to request the aid 
of the French court. ^ Franklin replied that it appeared 
impossible. Thus Laurens, ignorant of the efforts in his 
behalf, came to consider himself neglected. 

December 3, 1780, he was met in his walk by another state 
prisoner. Lord George Gordon, who invited him to join him. 
Laurens declined and immediately returned to his quarters. 
Nevertheless this closed his eighteen days of liberty; for 

' Memorandum in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

= Sparks's Dip. Cor., ii., 463; Wharton, v., 454. Lafayette, while in 
France in 1782, after Laurens's release, was equally generous as his wife. 
Hearing that Mr. Laurens was, as the Marquis had once described himself 
to that gentleman (who, as we remember, relieved him by a loan of $6,000), 
"a little schort of money," he reciprocated the kindness by sending him a 
letter of credit for £500 sterling, which Mr. Laurens declined to accept. 
Lafayette's offer in 5. C. Hist. Mag., viii., 63, 184; ix., 175, and Laurens's 
reply of Aug. 6, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

3 Franklin's Works, viii., 254. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 369 

Gore, despite the fact that the guards who accompanied 
Laurens acquitted him of all blame, strictly locked him up for 
the next eighty-one days.^ Gordon went unpunished. 

November 25th Laurens saw his granddaughter and Miss 
Manning;* December 14th his son Henry and Mr. Manning 
again, and from time to time these and other friends. January 
3, 1781, he received a short, kind, and heavily guarded visit 
from his old friend and mercantile correspondent Richard 
Oswald. Regarding this there is in the British Public Record 
Office the following memorandum, purporting to be a report 
from Oswald: 

Janry 3d, 1781. 
Mr. Laurens, in a conversation with Mr. Oswald, said he wished that he 
would let any of the Secretaries of State know, that, if he was permitted to 
go to South Carolina on his Parole, he believes he could satisfy them that 
he could do considerable service to this nation. 3 

Laurens's entire course while a prisoner proves this to be a 
misrepresentation. Manning's and Oswald's anxiety to ob- 
tain the release of their friend led them, as we shall see, to 
make proposals which offended him. Oswald could hardly 
have intentionally falsified. Either he or someone else was 
under a complete misunderstanding. Laurens's entire notice 
of the interview is as follows : 

1 78 1. January the 3rd, Mr. Oswald gave a very short, but kind visit, in 
presence of officers, as usual. A general and unpointed conversation. He 
had been in Scotland until recently. 

January 13, 1781, Oswald, Manning, and Henry Laurens, 
Jr., were all admitted. 

Governor Gore's persecution did not incline Laurens to 
cordiality towards that gentleman. When he called his 
prisoner treated him with such coolness that "he looked 

^ Laurens says forty-seven days, but his Narrative shows it was eighty- 
one. 

" MS. diary in N. Y. Pub. Lib. 

3 Stevens's Facsimiles, 960. The handwriting of the memorandum is 
similar to Manning's. It is endorsed in the hand of Sir Stanier Portem 
"3 Janry 1781 Mr. Oswald." 
24 



370 Life of Henry Laurens 

awkwardly and retired, " and when he informed Laurens, 
who had received cake from a friend, that he was to receive 
nothing except through him, he had to swallow the reply, "I 
will receive nothing through so dirty a channel." Gore sent 
him a newspaper containing bad news for the Americans, 
with the comment, "I fancy this will not please the high 
stomached gentleman. " Laurens replied that he would soon 
return the compliment. 

February 22 d Laurens walked out for the first time in 
eighty-one days, Vernon having secured the veto of Gore's 
prohibition. 

It was on the 26th of February that attempts were begun to 
seduce him from the American cause — a circumstance which 
proves how groundless is the memorandum of January 3d 
quoted above which represents him as offering his services. 
The principal agents employed were his three most intimate 
friends in England, Manning, Oswald, and General James 
Grant. There can be no doubt that they sincerely desired his 
liberation, and looking upon the war as a rebellion, they might 
conscientiously recommend steps which, though dishonorable 
for an American, would not appear so to them. On February 
26th Oswald sent word that he had offered to pledge his whole 
estate for Laurens's good conduct, and that "their Lordships 
say, that if you will point out anything for the benefit of Great 
Britain, in the present dispute with the colonies, you shall be 
enlarged. " Then and afterwards it was sought to intimidate 
him with fears of execution should the war prove only a rebel- 
lion and not a revolution. Laurens replied that he was not a 
rascal and did not fear the "possible consequences" of which 
his friend warned him; and as to pointing out anything for 
the benefit of Great Britain, he would only allude to the good 
advice often before given, that she should have treated her 
colonies with more kindness, which would have prevented 
the complicated war with them and France in which she now 
found herself. 

These attempts were continued for weeks. Laurens knew 
that Oswald acted for the ministers from the fact that the 
guards retired for the first time when he called on March 7th. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 371 

He need only write a few lines, said Oswald, saying that he 
was sorry for what was past. 

"Sir," Laurens replied, "I will never subscribe to my own 
infamy, and to the dishonor of my children. " 

Oswald then again called up the vision of the scaffold, 

"Permit me to repeat, Sir," replied Laurens, "that I am 
afraid of no consequences, but such as flow from dishonorable 
acts." 

His friend's squeeze of the hand in leaving convinced Laurens 
that he had not been mistaken in thinking that he had been 
ashamed of his task. Lord George Germain thinking, sur- 
mised Laurens, that Oswald was too much the prisoner's friend, 
chose another agent. Just a week later General James Grant 
dropped in for a chat of "only three hours and a quarter. " 

After being very tedious he put his hand in his waist-coat pockets, and 
said, "Col. Laurens, I have brought paper and pencil to take down any 
propositions you may have to make to the administration, and I will 
deliver them myself." 

Laurens instantly replied : 

My dear General, I have paper and pencil, but not one proposition 
beyond repeating a request to be enlarged from this confinement upon 
parole. I thin.k I have a right to expect the indulgence in return for my 
treatment of British officers and other British prisoners in America, which 
you are not ignorant of, and you must pardon me, General, for saying, I 
am ungratefully treated; attempts to soften and bend me by rigor will 
prove ineffectual. I had well weighed what consequences might follow 
when I entered into the present dispute. I took the path of justice and 
honor, and no personal evUs shall cause me to shrink. ^ 

Bungling attempts through other agents proving equally 
hopeless, they were discontinued for several weeks. It was 
during these solicitations that John Laurens arrived in Paris 
as special envoy. Laurens was informed that this "was very 
much resented, was very injurious to me, " and caused his con- 

' We see Laurens here urging the same ground for consideration which, 
when put in a petition to Parliament, gave such offense in Congress. 
Laurens never dreamed that he was compromising the honor of an American 
representative or making any "submission" by calling attention to the fact 
that when he had Englishmen in his power he treated them with generosity. 



372 Life of Henry Laurens 

finement to be "the more rigorous," and that his writing to 
his son to withdraw from France "would be well taken at the 
British court. " It is unnecessary to detail the terms in which 
this stupid and dishonorable suggestion was repelled. On the 
20th of June the solicitation to forsake America was renewed 
in milder form and Laurens was told that if he would only 
allow a friend to signify his willingness to accept a pardon all 
would be well. To this attempt to seduce him into the ac- 
knowledgment that the Ajnericans were rebel subjects, he 
replied that, as he had committed no crime, it was impossible 
for him to accept a pardon, and concluded the correspondence 
in terms as strong as his feeHngs for his friends Oswald and 
Manning would admit. 

We now arrive at an incident which will probably be con- 
sidered the most blame-worthy act of Laurens's during his 
imprisonment, but which an explanation will very much relieve. 
Three circumstances led him, June 23, 1781, to present a peti- 
tion to the ministers : first, the depletion of the fund in hand out 
of which he had been paying for his support in prison; second, 
the need of conferring with his son regarding his further educa- 
tion, and third, the desire to refute false reports that he had 
been an extreme and merciless partisan in his former relations 
with England which had been circulated with a view of injur- 
ing his reputation and occasioning a rigorous treatment dur- 
ing his imprisonment. Johnson, in his Traditions of the 
Revolution very justly surmises Laurens's motives in enumer- 
ating his past history in the similar second petition to be 
noticed presently, as is proved by his "parody" in which he 
so far paraphrases it as to bring out this meaning.^ It was 
gratifying to me after having formed this same view from 
studying the petition itself to run upon an unexpected confirma- 
tion in the copy preserved by Laurens which bears explana- 
tory annotations which he did not attach to the copy sent 
to the ministers. This appears in detail in the notes below 
and is proved by the general declaration contained in the 
following endorsement by Laurens on the back of this 
copy: 

^ Traditions of the Revolution, 20. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 373 

Representation & Prayer to the Secretaries of State 23d June, 1781. 
The Representations were intended to refute malicious accusations which 
had been whispered to the Ministers, particularly the 5th & 14th. 
The Prayers are such as common humanity would grant. 
But justice, humanity & the law of retaUation, are inverted. 
Two declarations of Capt. M. & Capt. B. are within.' 

In reproducing the petition as sent to the ministry I shall 
therefore insert as footnotes these explanatory annotations 
which the petitioner wrote on his own retained copy perpen- 
dicularly in the left hand margin by the sections to which 
they respectively referred:^ 

' This copy is among the Laurens MSS. belonging to the L. I. Hist. Soc. 
and has never been used before for the purposes of any publication. 

^ The MS. from which I reproduce the petition has an extremely interest- 
ing history, with a tantalizing dash of mystery. Though it is a petition 
to be allowed the use of pen and ink which the petitioner consistently here 
and in his Narrative represents himself as deprived of, besides his specific 
statement that he wrote this particular paper in pencil, yet the manuscript 
has every mark of being the original from his own hand and is in ink. It is 
in Laurens's hand and is written on the foUo pages of a blank book, num- 
bered from 322 to 335, the numbers being erased on some pages and the 
holes of the binding thread still intact. The creases where the writer folded 
the paper still show plainly, and on the back is the endorsement in the same 
hand, without any doubt, that wrote Lord Hillsborough's letters in Stevens's 

Facsimiles : 

Representation from 
Henry Lawrence Esq' 
to the three Secretaries 
of State. 

reed, from Col. Gore 

23 June 1 781. 

The misspelling of Laurens's name is the same as in some of Lord Hills- 
borough's letters. Below this endorsement is a knife-erased line on whose 
few remains I spent much time in the hope that it might reveal something of 
the history of the paper. The hand of the endorsement is either that of 
Hillsborough or his secretary, probably the latter. 

Laurens tells us that friends frequently inked over his penciled papers 
before their deHvery and teUs us that the copy of this paper which he pre- 
served for himself was "copied from the penciled original by a friend." 
Either some friend did this for the petition before it was deUvered or it 
was done in the State Paper Office for preservation. The original of the 
manuscript was acquired by the New York Public Library as a part of the 
Emmet Collection. Thomas Addis Emmet got it at the sale of another 



374 Life of Henry Laurens 

To 

The Right Honorable 

The Earl of Hillsborough 
The Right Honorable 

Viscount Stormont 
The Right Honorable 

Lord George Germaine 
His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State 

The underwritten Representation and Prayer of Henry Laurens close 
Prisoner in the Tower of London is with all possible Respect and deference 
submitted. 

1st. That the Representer was bred up in principles of Loyalty Love 
& attachment to the Royal House of Brunswick, & through all the Changes 
which have happened of late years he hath never lost his affection to Great 
Britain.'' 

2d. That in the Year 1 756 or 1 757. he was elected one of the Representa- 
tives in the General Assembly of South Carolina for Charles Town & 
regularly reappointed to the same Duty from time to time tiU the unpro- 
pitios Epoch 1775. 

3d. That in his Public Character he never did nor consented to any Act 
derogatory to the Honor of the Crown or repugnant to the Constitution of 
Great Britain — that always to the utmost of his, very limited, abilities, he 
supported the prerogatives of the King & the true Interests of the people 
not deter 'd by the stigma of "King's Man & Governor's Man" sarcastic- 
famous collector, S. L. M. Barlow, in 1889, in whose possession it was when 
first published, in August, 1886, in the Historical Magazine, x., 233. It 
was later published in the Bulletin of the N. Y. Pub. Lib., ii., 44, Feb., 1898. 
Barlow bought the most valuable part of his collection from Thomas 
AspinwaU in 1864, this paper probably among others. Aspinwall was 
American Consul in London, 1815-53, and probably bought the paper from 
the collection of a certain trusted clerical ofEicial in the Public Record Office, 
a noted collector of Americana who, it woidd appear, could not resist the 
temptation of adding to his treasures a most interesting paper at that time 
of no practical importance to the government. This collection was sold 
during Aspinwall's residence in London. That the paper in New York is 
the original which was removed from the British Public Record Office is 
certain from the facts, supplied me by the present Secretary, Mr. R. A. 
Roberts, 27 March, 1914, that the two depositions which accompanied the 
petition are stiU there and that the numbering of their pages is 336 to 343, 
while that of the petition is 322 to 335. I am indebted to Mr, Wilberforce 
Eames, of the New York Public Library, in tracing the history of this paper. 
' On the margin opposite paragraph ist, is written in the copy kept by 
Laurens (L. I. Hist. Soc. Col.) : "it has been said he was bred in republican 
principles & was a determined enemy to the Br. Govt." 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 375 

ally affix'd to his character by some of his fellow citizens — for general proof 
of these facts, he dares appeal to the several Noble Lords & Honorable 
Gentlemen who have been Governors of So. Carolina & three neighboring 
Provinces. ' 

4th. That his conduct & actions in private life were strictly conformable 
to his professions in public. 

5th. That he was a Merchant upwards of Twenty Years in very exten- 
sive Commerce, that he never did in any one Instance wilftdly violate or 
infringe upon the Act of Navigation, which he ever held as a sacred Pact 
between Great Britain & the Colonies; on the contrary, he ever discounte- 
nanced & as much as in him lay discouraged, every attempt to illicit Trade 
to the prejudice of the Revenue and the Legal Rights of Great Britain, 
although temptations to enter into such Trade have been held out to him 
with prospects of great gain by persons in this Kingdom, & once by a Col- 
lector of His Majesty's Customs with the highest probability of safety from 
detection, of all which, he can give proof. ^ 

6th. That in the Year 1 764. when it was intended to Tax America by 
Stamp Duties, altho' the Act appeared to him to be unjust & he was con- 
vinced it was at least impolitic, he recommended in the House of Assembly 
of So. Carolina, the Constitutional mode of Petitioning and Treating for 
redress, in preference to the Novelty of a general Congress & that he refused 
to Vote for Delegates to the Congress which met at N. York 1765.3 

7th. That in 1 765 he was summon'd as a Member of Assembly to attend 
a public meeting of the People, where he found the deliberations to be, upon 
means for seizing the Stamp'd Paper just arrived in Charles Town & for 
awing the Officers appointed to distribute it. That he express'd peremp- 
tory dissents to every proposition leading to Violence & again strongly 
urg'd Petitions and expostulation, pledging his whole Fortune that Peti- 
tions would be received & favorably discuss'd; That in resentment of his 
declarations on that occasion, he was publicly charged as an Abettor of the 
Stamp Act, his House beset at Midnight by a large Body of Arm'd Men, 
who under pretence of searching for Stamp'd Paper violently seiz'd his 
person, threatened his Life, & greatly affrighted & annoyed his family; 
but being unintimidated himself he would concede to none of their very 
many propositions & demands, but he reiterated his recommendation to 
Petition &ca again pledging his Life his reputation & Estate upon the Wis- 
dom & Justice of the King & the Parliament of Great Britain. 

I Opposite "3d" in Laurens's L. L Hist. Soc. copy: "That his republican 
principles naturally led him into factious opposition to the K's. Gov't. " 

* Opposite "5th" in Laurens's L. I. Hist. Soc. copy: "That he had been 
one of the greatest smugglers in America, & always opposed & eluded Acts 
of Parliament for regulating the Plantation Trade. " 

3 Opposite " 6th " in Laurens's L. I. Hist. Soc. copy : "That he had been 
a principal promoter of the disturbances in America in 1765 &ca. " 



376 Life of Henry Laurens 

8th. That in the Year 1767 or 1768. when the Colonists entered into 
general Resolutions for counteracting the internal Tax or Duty on Paper 
Paint Glass & Tea, although the Representer had invariably deported him- 
self as, in his judgment, became a good Subject & Citizen, although he 
enjoyed the universal esteem of the people as an honest Man & was class'd 
among the most wealthy, he was not held to be a fit person in any Committee 
for enforcing those Resolutions. " He was a King's Man & had a predilec- 
tion to Great Britain." 

9th. That in the Year 1774 being in London, the Representer join'd 
with other American Subjects in Petitions which were presented to the 
King & both Houses of Parliament on American grievances. 

And that being invited thereto when he deliver'd one of those petitions, 
he had the honor of intimating his sentiments to the Right Honorable the 
Earl of Dartmouth, to this effect, "that if the Bills respecting America 
then pending in Parliament should pass into Acts the people of the several 
Colonies from Georgia to New Hampshire would be animated to form such 
an Union & Phalanx of resistance as he had theretofore believed nothing less 
than a divine Miracle could establish." 

loth. That in October 1774 he left London embarked for So. Carolina 
& arrived at Charles Town early in December. 

I ith. That upon his arrival, he was ask'd if he had not Petitioned The 
King Lords & Commons & what Answers he had received? and a Memento 
was sounded in his Ears of the Guarantee which he had so often taken upon 
him, & of his Pledges. 

1 2th. That he nevertheless anxiously wish'd & most ardently strove to 
confine the growing dispute between this Kingdom & the Colonies within 
bounds admissable of an happy reconciliation — that for himself as an 
Individual, notwithstanding the Seeming injustice of Taxing America he 
would have submitted to the imposition in preference to a breach with the 
Mother Country from an assurance in his own mind, that the certain 
impolicy & unprofitableness of the project, wotdd after a few Years expe- 
rience, induce His Majesty's Ministers to abandon it. 

13th. That before the commencement of hostilities he persisted in dis- 
countenancing aU acts of compulsion & violence towards Men who acted 
honestly & consistently, however much they might differ from the American 
Resolutionists in political tenets. & that to every such person coming within 
his sphere, he extended consideration, humanity, kindness. ' 

In one instance of his impartiality towards persons deem'd, "suspected 
& disaffected" he incurr'd such displeasure and resentment as oblig'd him 
to take the Field & stand up to be shot at by a Youth who was Born, after 



'Opposite "13th" in Laurens's L. I. Hist. Soc. copy: "That he had 
been a most virulent prosecutor of Loyalists whom he had greatly injur'd 
in many instances. " 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 377 

he had been a Father of Children, very many men there are, some now in 
London, who will bear testimony to these facts. 

14th. That when a motion was urg'd in an Assembly of the People of 
So. Carolina for prohibiting the Payment of debts due in Great Britain, 
the Representer opposed the measure to the utmost of his power, & finally 
declared, he would not hold himself bound by a Resolution which his Con- 
science inform'd him was unjust and iniquitos. this fact is well known by a 
Gentleman who was present at the time alluded to & now in London.' 

15th. That after his arrival at Charles Town as above mention'd he 
writ & continued writing to his friends in England, lamenting the prospect 
which the times presented & pressing for their exertions to avert the Evils 
which he predicted as consecutive to the subsisting animosity. & so late as 
the 27th February 1776, in a letter to Will: Manning Esquire, he express'd 
his feelings in the following terms. — 

"I weep for Great Britain, I love & reverence her, but alas! I perceive 
I am to be seperated from her & that my chUdren are to be call'd by some 
new Name. " 

"The cry here is, 'let us resist against violence, we cannot be worse 
off than we are, one Year more will enable us to be Independent.' Ah! 
that word cuts me deep, I assure you I feign not, when I say the bare 
expression has caus'd tears to trickle down my Cheeks; We wish not for 
Independence, but Britain will force a seperation & Independence will soon 
follow." 

"My Son will shew you a Pamphlet lately pubUsh'd in Philadelphia 
& republish'd here. {Common Sense on American Independence) 

" The Doctrines contained in it are not reUsh'd with us yet. and never 
WILL BE, if Great Britain will act Wisely hereafter. " 

He also writ to the same effect in a Letter to Richard Oswald Esqr. 
which letter Mr. Oswald laid before Lord Dartmouth. 

The Representer was unapprized of the line of seperation, which was at the 
time of his writing drawn or drawing by an Act of Parliament. 

i6th. That in June 1775. When an Association was forming by the 
People of South Carolina for defence, & Articles for that purpose reduced 
into writing to which the Representer was order'd to sign first, he absolutely 
in the face of the People, refused to set his Name without certain previos 
reservations, which he then explain 'd. 

1st. Saving his Allegiance to the King.^ 



^ Opposite " 14th" in Laurens's L. I. Hist. Soc. copy: "That he had pro- 
posed & effected the resolution for nonpayment of debts due to Great 
Britain." 

* "from a cursory reading of the Articles he apprehended they looked a 
little beyond mere defence." (This note is in the original in N. Y. Pub. Lib. 
as well as in Laurens's L. I. Hist. Soc. copy. The latter has also at this 



378 Life of Henry Laurens 

2nd. Charity towards his friends & others who might refuse to sign 
the Paper.' 

And here he cannot forbear remarking that the then Lieutt. Governor, 
who as he is inform'd is present Lieutt. Governor of So. CaroHna, to whom 
the Articles had been tendred for his signature, intimated his approbation 
of the measure & regretted that he could not resign his Commission into 
proper hands & thereby qualify himself for signing the Association.^ 

The Representer does not introduce this as an invidios" charge against 
Mr. Bull, his meaning is to display to Your Lordships the very high encour- 
agement given to the People (some of whom were doubting) to believe them- 
selves right & to enter into a defensive Band. 

17th. That after the actual commencement of Hostilities & open War 
declared by Actions on both sides, the Representer persever'd in his atten- 
tions to honest & consistent Nonconformists, not only to Individuals but 
to whole bodies of Quietists. He also embraced every opportunity of 
alleviating the distresses of British Prisoners of War, for many of whom he 
obtained Parole enlargement to work their Exchanges, to others he lent or 
gave Money or other necessaries according to their respective needs, & here 
he might produce a Cloud of Witnesses & among others appeal to Civil 
Officers & Officers of the British Army & Navy, but he forbears troubling 
Your Lordships with any more than the voluntary Declarations of Capt. 
Lach: Mcintosh & Capt. Peter Bachop, Copies of which will accompany 
this. 

1 8th. That since the Representer's confinement in the Tower he has 
learned that many false & injurios Reports respecting his conduct in Amer- 
ica have been circulated & particularly that Your Lordships have been 
induced to believe, he was a Promoter of a certain Vote of the Assembly in 
So. Carolina for remitting £1500. Stg. in the Year 1769. to the Society for 
supporting the Bill of Rights in London. 

When that Vote pass'd, he was 160. Miles distant from Charles Town 
& had received no premonition of the intended Act, his first information 

point the following additional note: "being then President of the Pro- 
vincial (not Continental) Congress. ") 

^ "One Article declared, that every Man who should refuse to sign should 
be deem'd an Enemy to his Country & treated accordingly against which he 
strenuously excepted & never would conform to." — (This note is in both 
copies. — D. D. W.) 

* " An Answer in such terms was delivered as from the Lieutt. Governor to 
the People, by his Nephew Stephen Bull Esqr. repeated by his Nephew W. 
H. Drayton Esqr. and again by both, possibly the Lieutt. Governor might 
have design'd only to amuse the people, be that as it may, the intimation 
had its effect, it was grateful & highly encouraging to them, 
all this he can also prove." 

(This note is in both copies. — D. D. W.) 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 379 

of it was gather'd from a News Paper which he read in the Country & 
immediately in presence of divers persons pass'd his Censure in very plain 
language, "these Chaps will get a rap o' the knuckles for this. " 

It is true he regretted the mode of resentment afterward adopted by 
His Majesty's Ministers which manifestly threw an advantage into the 
hands of those persons who originally were transgressors & who might have 
been easily & effectually check'd upon the spot by constitutional applica- 
tions without giving any trouble to Ministry; the Lt. Governor might even 
have prevented the Vote or Payment of the Money out of the Treasury. 

In vindication of himself under this Charge he may appeal to the Right 
Honble General Conway & to Charles Garth Esquire sometime Agent for 
So. Carolina. 

In a word the Representer never acted the Demagogue or Incendiary 
of the People, never suggested or promoted any measure which could pos- 
sibly be affrontive to His Majesty or tend to disturb the order of good 
Government & he cannot forbear contrasting the present circumstances of 
persons who did act in such Characters & persecuted him as described above 
who are now treated as Prisoners of War & also in possession of their Estates 
— with his own. 

19th. That he was taken Captive on the American Coast, & first landed 
upon American Ground where he saw before his Eyes, Exchanges of Amer- 
ican Prisoners in Negotiation, & enlargements, one at least, granted upon 
Parol. 

20th. That he has been upwards of Eight Months & an half a Prisoner 
in the Tower, great part of that time in very close & painful confinement, 
almost totally deprived of the company of his nearest friends & relations 
& particularly of his Son, a Boy in his Eighteenth Year. 

2 1 St. That he hath, during his Imprisonment lived entirely at his own 
expense & now begins to need a supply of Money for the further support 
of himself & his Son. 

Grounded upon the Premises the Representer humbly presumes to Pray. 

That Your Lordships will be pleased in so far to mitigate the Rigor of 
his Imprisonment as, 

First, to grant him the use of Pen & Ink (which he is informed cannot be 
allowed with (sic) special permission from Your Lordships) for writing a 
draught or draughts on a Merchant in London Qohn Nutt Esquire) who is 
indebted to him. 

And secondly, to permit his Son to visit him once twice or thrice as the 
Interesting occasion may require for the sole purpose of consulting upon a 
Plan for the Young Man's future conduct in Life. Together with such 
further indulgence to the Representer & Petitioner as to Your Lordships 
Wisdom & Goodness shall seem fitting. 

In conclusion; as the Representer & Petitioner enjoys not the benefit 
of the advice of Counsel, the assistance of an Attorney or even of the opinon 
of a judicios friend & as he is unpracticed in the Executive of forms of this 



38o Life of Henry Laurens 

kind, he implores Your Lordships indulgent construction & Interpretation 
upon any & every part of the preceeding lines which to Your Lordships may 
appear censurable or exceptionable & that Your Lordships will condescend 
to listen to him while he assures Your Lordships that he regrets exceed- 
ingly the necessity which he finds himself under to take up one Moment 
of Your Lordships attention. 

Henry Laurens. 
Tower of London, 23d June 1781.' 

Out of this mountain of representation, then, there issues 
this molehill of petition : that he be allowed to draw on John 
Nutt and receive several visits from his son. The motive of 
the preamble is plainly to secure an amelioration of his situa- 
tion by putting his previous relations to Great Britain in as 
favorable a light as possible in correction of the erroneous 
stacements which had been circulated to his injury. The 
propriety of his action we shall consider when narrating the 
discussion in Congress of his similar later petition.^ We may 
remark here that the conciliatory line which he adopted was 
plainly due in great part to the persuasion of Oswald and 
Manning, who all along influenced him as strongly as possible 
in this way, and particularly of the latter, who must have 
supplied him with the extensive verbatim extract, exact date 
included, of the letter quoted in the petition and probably also 
with the depositions of Mcintosh and Bachop. Manning's 
efforts with the Ministry in seeking to minimize his friend's 
revolutionary conduct were pathetic and went further than 
Laurens would follow.^ 

The petition was met with total silence, if indeed the minis- 
ters ever saw it ; the prisoner continued to buy his bread from 
his dwindling cash, and Hillsborough's secretary replied to 
applications for his son to visit him : 

^ At end of the copy retained by Laurens is note: "Now (in October) 
on the verge of real necessity No provision made for his support, & his 
prayer to draw for money due to him, refused by, the most grating of all 
denials, a total silence & delay." (Same repeated just below with a few 
words changed.) 

^ Chapter XXV. 

3 Cf. Manning to Hillsborough, Apr. 3, 1781, July 21, 1 781, etc., in 
Stevens's Facsimiles, 965, 972, 974, and 975. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 381 

What necessity is there for seeing his father? Can't he be satisfied with 
hearing that he is well in the Tower?' 

The philosophical prisoner therefore continued to occupy 
himself during the spring and summer copying large extracts 
from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in 
which he drew parallels to the conduct of England during the 
existing war. This he circulated among the friends of America 
in and out of Parliament. His testimony to many instances 
of shocking conduct of the British troops in America was 
believed, besides many facts of which even the first classes in 
England were wholly ignorant. "For obvious reasons" he 
declined to permit the " book " to be pubHshed, but it evidently 
was not without effect. He also circulated in the same way 
a vindication of Congress in suspending the embarkation of 
Burgoyne's troops, which, he asserts, converted many gentle- 
men who had censured that act. 

The captive ambassador was by this time becoming a dis- 
tinct embarrassment. He records, September 23, 1781, that 
for some time past he had been strongly urged by friends to 
make his escape, upon the assurance that he could easily reach 
the continent. He steadfastly refused to leave the Tower save 
as he had entered — through the door opened by the hand of 
authority. His surmise is reasonable that the plan originated 
higher up, on account of the embarrassing situation in which 
his treatment had placed the ministry. A little later he was 
told that they wished to get rid of him, but differed as to the 
proper means, and he was in fact informed by one near the 
government, December 6th, that his confinement was near an 
end. 

October 8th Laurens was presented with a bill for £97 ids., 
pay for the two warders who had guarded him for a year. He 
laughed at the demand and replied: 

This is the most extraordinary attempt I ever heard of. 'Tis enough to 
provoke me to change my lodging. ... If I were possessed of as many 
guineas as would fill this room, I would not pay the warders, whom I never 
employed, and whose attendance I shall be glad to dispense with. At- 
tempts, sir, to tax men without their own consent, have involved this 

' Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



382 Life of Henry Laurens 

kingdom in a bloody seven years war. I thought she had long since prom- 
ised to abandon the project. 

The two gentlemen who came with the demand agreed that 
it was unreasonable and said that if he had complied his money 
would have gone into a certain official's pocket, as a like sum 
would have been drawn from the treasury. 

Very well, gentlemen [he replied]; he may plunder your own treasury; 
he shall not cheat me if I can prevent it. 

The occasion served to remind him of his ebbing funds and 
two days later he vainly reminded Lieutenant Constable Ver- 
non in a penciled note of his petition three months and a half 
before to draw on Nutt.^ His funds being exhausted and 
his health very much impaired with the gout, the impression 
got abroad that he was in danger of starvation. Wealthy 
merchants and nobles poured in delicacies almost daily, with 
which he made happy the kind subordinates about him. The 
Governor took alarm and begged him to make known his wants 
to the ministers, but he refused, saying that he had long ago 
informed them of his condition in requesting permission to 
draw upon Nutt. As a matter of fact he had command over 
ample funds and could have borrowed any amount. "My 
worthy friend, Gabriel Manigault, Esq., had given (Mr. 
Manning) direction to apply all his money in Mr. Manning's 
hands to my use if needful. " Mr. Manning also 

had a considerable balance of mine in hand. I had a large sum deposited 
in France, but I was resolved that I would drive their Lordships either 
to make proper provision for me, or to allow me the use of pen and ink to 
draw upon John Nutt, upon whom only I would draw. I was persuaded 
that they would boggle at making provision. ^ 

And "boggle" they did. Though Laurens refused to address 

' Stevens's Facsimiles, 976. See Hillsborough's childish reply to Vernon, 
ih., 978, consenting to the request. The matter appears to have been 
neglected until a further protest from the prisoner, as will appear below. 

= This is the same Henry Laurens who Wharton tells us sought a for- 
eign appointment carrying £1500 as payment in full for salary and 
expenses in order to mend his finances. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 383 

the ministers again the Governor saw to it himself, and the 
next morning, October 30th, pen and ink were brought in and 
the moment the draft for fifty guineas was drawn were re- 
moved. Nutt paid the draft. 

The "high stomached gentleman, " all whose tart words were 
carried straight to the ministers, soon had another opportunity 
to give them a sting. That mediocre and arrogant individual 
Lord Hillsborough angrily refused a humble petition of 
Laurens's seventeen- year-old son to see his father. "That 
fellow! that fellow!" exclaimed Laurens to the bringer of the 
news; "if he and I were in a strange country, without money 
in our pockets, I should be obliged to maintain him ; he has not 
understanding enough to get his own living"; all which was 
faithfully reported to his Lordship. 

Whether this language or the gift of a turtle from Mr. 
Manning obtained the desired permission three or four days 
later, Laurens professes himself unable to say. 

Governor Gore also felt the rough side of his tongue. He 
sent saying he was sure from what he saw in the papers 
that his prisoner corresponded with Mr. Burke. 

Sir [replied the prisoner], tell the Governor I am sure he corresponds with 
the Morning Herald. irom what I have seen in that paper,'. . . tell him 
he may go on printing in the Herald; fifteen lies will not make one truth. ^ 

In August, 1781, Edmund Burke took up Laurens's case, 
nor did his interest flag until the prisoner's release. Among 
his plans suggested was a pardon, but Laurens answered Burke 
in December that he would not connive at or benefit by even 
a secret or unsolicited pardon, as it would be an implied con- 
fession of guilt, place him under obligations to the King, and 
make him an object of contempt in both countries. ^ To 
Manning, apparently,'' he wrote about the same time that he 
would accept death at the hand of his captors rather than par- 

' About his being satisfied with his treatment, perhaps. 
" Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

3 MS. for his Narrative in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

4 Laurens to ? in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. Though the 

address is wanting there can be no doubt that the letter was to Manning. 



384 Life of Henry Laurens 

don, as the latter would imply guilt. He continued in words 
which indicate the nature of the solicitations which his friend 
had been making : 

You know my opinion on this particular point. I repeat, that I wish 
the prosperit}'- of Great Britain, but I cannot believe a forced dependance 
of America will contribute to it. And with respect to America I believe 
she (meaning the present Union) will never be so completely happj^ under 
the supposed advantages of Independence as she was in her connexion with 
this Kingdom in 1763. or 1762. 

God forgive those on both sides who first projected the mischiefs which 
have involved us in our present difficulties — they have much to answer for. 

It was during these later months of 1781, harassed more 
severely than usual by the gout, irritated by more than a 
year's imprisonment, and plied industriously by Oswald and 
Manning in the British cause — and the solicitations of these 
friends must have constituted the severest of his temptations — 
that Laurens began to feel very keenly the neglect of Congress. 
Not until November 29, 1781, did the first semblance of 
comfort from his government reach him — a smuggled letter 
from FrankHn to the London agent for American prisoners 
saying he was glad to learn that he was contented with his 
treatment and directing the agent to supply him with £100. 
John Adams ordered a similar amount placed at his disposal.^ 
Laurens declined this "drop of water from the very tip of 
Lazarus' little finger," and noted that this was the first con- 
solation he had received from his country. "But they were 

I Wharton, i., 582, says that "statements supposed to have emanated 
from him as to the brutality of his treatment were contradicted by other 
statements to which his name was subscribed." I think Wharton is mis- 
taken in saying that any such statements were over Laurens's signature. 
I notice that in giving an account of the debate in Parliament in December, 

1 78 1, he transforms the statement reported in the Annual Register for 

1782, p. 148, that a letter was produced from the Lt.-Governor of the 
Tower, dated November, 1780, about Laurens, into the statement that 
Lord George Germaine said that he had a letter of November, 1780, from 
Laurens. (Wharton, i., 583, and v., 743.) The words of the Annual 
Register make it plain that it was Vernon's letter of November 27, 1780, 
to Cooper, referred to above (p. 367) or practically a duplicate of this. 
Laurens positively asserts that the statements of his being satisfied with 
his treatment were false. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 385 

poor and torn by parties, " he reflected by way of apology, 
and continued with the self-satisfaction which sustained him 
alike in prosperity and adversity, "Mr. Laurens had been a 
strenuous opposer of the corrupt and wicked party, often the 
strongest. " 

The bringing of Laurens's case before ParUament was due 
to Franklin and Burke. On August 15, 1781, Burke, on his 
own impulse solely, wrote to Franklin to secure the exchange 
of Burgoyne. Franklin repUed informing him of the resolve 
of Congress to offer Burgoyne in exchange for Laurens and 
requested Burke to execute the arrangement. When Parlia- 
ment met Burke early called attention to the treatment of the 
prisoner. December ist Laurens received from him an invita- 
tion to petition the House of Commons for release or easier 
treatment. In response he penciled that same day on the 
flyleaf of a book a petition in the following language, Mr. 
Burke not having sent the "safe and inoffensive form" he 
promised — an omission which proved very damaging to 
Laurens in America: 

To the Right Hon. Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Speaker, and the Hon. the 
House of Commons : 

The representation and prayer of Henry Laurens, a native of South 
Carolina, sometime recognized by the British Commissioners in America 
by the style ^ of His Excellency Henry Laurens, President of Congress, now 
a close prisoner in the Tower of London; 

Most respectfully sheweth. That your representer for many years, at the 
peril of his life and fortune, evidently^ laboured to preserve and strengthen 
the ancient friendship between Great Britain and the colonies; and that 
in no instance he ever excited on either side the dissensions which separated 
them. 

That the commencement of the present war was a subject of great grief 
to him, inasmuch as he foresaw and foretold, in letters now extant, the 
distresses which both countries experience at this day. 

' Wharton has "stile and title. " 

"I foUow the Annual Register for 1781, 322. Wharton, v., 744, gives 
"ardently" instead of evidently, but states that the ParHamentary History 
has evidently. Peter Force, in Hist. Mag., ii., 133, also has "ardently." 
In view of the fact that the ParUamentary History and Burke, the editor 
of the Anntial Register, who presented the paper, have evidently, I do not 
see the justification of dianging it to ardently. 

25 



386 Life of Henry Laurens 

In the rise and progress of the war, he extended every act of kindness in 
his power to persons called Loyalists and Quietists, as well as to British 
prisoners of war; very ample proofs of which he can produce. 

That he was captured on the American coast, first landed upon American 
ground, where he saw exchanges of British and American prisoners in 
course of negotiation; and that such exchanges and enlargements upon 
parole are mutually and daily practiced in America. 

That he was committed to the Tower on the 6th of October, 1780, being 
then dangerously £11; that in the mean time he has, in many respects, 
particularly by being deprived (with very Uttle exception) of the visits and 
consultations of his children and other relations and friends, suffered under 
a degree of rigour almost, if not altogether unexampled in modern British 
history. 

That from long confinement, and the want of proper exercise, and other 
obvious causes, his bodily health is greatly impaired, and that he is now in 
a languishing state: And, 

Therefore your representer humbly prays your Honours will condescend 
to take his case into consideration; and, under proper conditions and re- 
strictions, grant him enlargement, or such other relief as to the wisdom and 
benignity of your Honours shall seem fitting. 

Henry Laurens. 

Tower of London, Dec. i, 1781. 

Burke was meantime pressing the exchange with the minis- 
try. About the middle of December, becoming disgusted with 
them and convinced that they would do nothing for one who 
had exposed their incompetency as had Burgoyne, he aban- 
doned the negotiations and determined to place the issue 
before Parliament. On the 17th he attacked the arbitrary and 
unjust system on which exchanges were conducted and used 
the cases of Laurens and Burgoyne as prominent examples. 
The treatment of Mr. Laurens, whom he praised as one of the 
most enlightened and liberal men alive, he denounced as 
disgraceful. Statements of a contrary nature as to his treat- 
ment were made on the other side, and afterwards in private 
conversation a letter, evidently that of Lieutenant Governor 
Vernon of November 27, 1780, to Sir Guy Cooper, was quoted 
as proof that Laurens was even grateful for the consideration 
which he received. ^ Burke, indignant over these misrepresen- 

^ Annual Register, 1782, 147-8. N. B. that Wharton, v., 743, appar- 
ently transforms this into a letter from Laurens. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 387 

tations, considered that the opportune time had come, and 
on the 20th he presented Laurens's petition in its original 
crude form. 

The same day, December 20th, Laurens addressed a brief 
appeal to Congress to undertake his exchange. "There has 
been languor, and there is neglect somewhere, " he complained. 
"If I merit your attention, you will no longer delay speedy 
and efficacious means for my deliverance." 

From the beginning of December his early release was assured . 
Lord North favored exchange with Burgoyne, but the commit- 
ment for high treason was a stumbling block, not to speak of 
the prejudice against Burgoyne. The General was moreover 
soon eliminated by the rumor of his exchange for 1040 common 
soldiers.' The surrender of Lord Comwallis in October and 
the course of opinion as well as arms were rendering the deten- 
tion of an American envoy on the charge of treason a mockery 
reflecting little credit upon its perpetrators. At this point the 
ministry inquired of Laurens through Oswald* whether Frank- 
lin could exchange Cornwallis for him. Laurens replied that 
he did not know, but proposed over his signature to use his 
influence, if released on parole, to secure this arrangement.^ 

While grateful to Burke, Laurens had not committed him- 
self unreservedly into his hands, fearing, but I believe unjustly, 
that Burke's sentiments might be adulterated with a desire 
to use him as a stalking horse for party interests. He trusted 
more to the sincerity and effectiveness of Oswald's aid, which 
without question was of great value. The release was made 
with the Comwallis exchange in view, though the official 
proceedings, to save the face of the thing, bore all the sem- 
blance of a release on bail awaiting trial on the original charge 

»He was later exchanged for Gen. Moultrie "and a number of other 
Americans." — Moultrie's Memoirs, ii., 353. 

' Oswald to Franklin, June 5, 1782. Wharton, v., 478-9. 

3 The statements regarding Cornwallis I base on the following letters, 
no one of which contains the complete narrative, but none of which conflict: 
Laurens to Franklin, June 24, 1782; Oswald to Franklin, June 5, 1782; and 
Laurens to Comwallis, Dec. 9, 1782, found in Wharton, v., 507 and 478 
and vi., 121, 



388 Life of Henry Laurens 

of high treason — a feature which from that point onward was 
quietly ignored. On the last day of the year 1781 Laurens, 
unable to stand except on crutches, was taken in a sedan chair 
before Lord Mansfield. Before the arrival of the Chief 
Justice, the business being about to be opened by an assistant, 
Laurens announced: 

Sir, I am not a lawyer, and have had no opportunity for consulting my 
judicious friend ; I speak the suggestions of my own mind, (all was sUence 
and attention) I know not the nature of the obUgation which is to be re- 
quired of me, therefore I think it necessary to make this previous declaration, 
that I hold myself to be a citizen of the United, free and independent States 
of North America, and will not do any act which shaU involve me in an 
acknowledgment of subjection to this realm; having made this declaration 
I am ready to enter into any obligation.' 

These words caused quite a stir and were reported, it 
appears, in a whisper by the assistant to Lord Mansfield, who 
just then arrived. Laurens expected to be remanded to prison ; 
but his Lordship "was very condescending," and accepted 
Oswald's and his nephew Alexander Anderson's bonds for 
£2000 each and the prisoner's for £4000 to appear at the Easter 
term of the Court of King's Bench. ^ Laurens records that 

When the words . . . "Our sovereign Lord, the King" were repeated, I said 
aloud, "not my sovereign lord." [The Solicitor remarked that some vio- 
lence was done the laws for his relief.] Thus [says Laurens] terminated 
a long, and to me an expensive and painful farce. 

The evening after he was liberated and lying sick in bed, 
a South Carolina friend called and began to tell him of his 
estates at home. "Not a word, my friend, of my private 
affairs," replied Laurens; "I will not enquire nor do I wish 
to hear anything respecting them till my country is safe." 
It was the same spirit in which he had accepted his mission, the 
same which he maintained during his imprisonment, and the 
same on which he acted after his enlargement. Laurens and 
his London friends thought his release a virtual acknowledg- 

» The Narrative, which I have quoted, differs slightly from Laurens's 
report to Congress, May 30, 1782. 
^ Stevens's Facsimiles, 959, 988. 



Imprisonment in the Tower of London 389 

ment that independence was inevitable. Throughout his 
imprisonment he had labored for the American cause by 
corresponding with the rebel press and the opposition in 
Parliament and had striven to impress the ministry with the 
certainty of American success. Now that this was about to be 
obtained, he felt that his influence upon British opinion had 
played an important part towards that end. He states that 
when he was returning to America, two of his friends advised 
him to accept a certificate which would be numerously signed 
that he had "laid the foundation of the peace. " This he very 
properly declined; but his opinion of its justness appears in 
the remark, "Probably the capture of Lord Comwallis might 
have contributed to hasten the peace more than anything I 
have said or done, but I might truly bare this testimony of 
myself — that I was not deficient in my endeavors." At any 
rate, he felt that his anticipations at the time of his capture had 
been fulfilled, that he would be able to do more for his country 
in England than would have been possible in Europe. While 
his estimate of his influence in bringing British opinion to 
acknowledge the inevitableness of independence was exagger- 
ated, particularly as relates to anything he said or did during 
his imprisonment, it appears, as will presently be seen, that 
his services in this regard after his release were of real value. 



CHAPTER XXV 

PEACE COMMISSIONER, 1 782-83 

THE third day after his release Laurens fled from the 
burden of company to Bath, of whose waters his gout 
stood sorely in need. The waters always helped him; but 
his shattered health required repeatedly to be repaired by the 
same means. With the intention of sailing for America on 
the November packet, little knowing how his plans were to be 
deranged, he secured the King's consent to remain in England 
for the recovery of his health until that time.^ Upon his 
release he became the center of a distinguished circle of friends, 
some of whom admired him to the point of hero worship. It 
is significant that he associated intimately with a number of 
distinguished advocates of negro emancipation, and we shall 
see that in such company he was not out of place. Among 
his friends were that religious and philanthropic leader the 
Countess of Huntingdon, her friend Lady Ann Erskine, the 
eccentric stoic and novelist the author of Sanford and 
Merton, Thomas Day, the famous pottery artist and manu- 
facturer Richard Champion who took up his residence in 
Camden, S. C, about the same time that his friend returned 
to his home, and the eminent pubUcist and abolitionist Dr. 
Richard Price. ^ The Countess of Huntingdon addressed Mr. 

' Townshend to Laurens, Sept. 28, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. 
Soc. 

" Champion, an idealistic admirer of America, and his family were warm 
friends of Laurens as early as 1782. Champion, having moved to South 
Carolina in 1784, soon found that Charleston manifested a social dissipa- 
tion which he could only account for as the dregs of war and monarchy, 
and that making a living at indigo and corn at Camden, though illustrating 

390 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 391 

Laurens as "my much beloved friend" and sent him directions 
for treating his gout, along with her own favorite prescription. 
They were thrown much together at Bath in a friendship which 
extended to Laurens's children after they joined him in Eng- 
land, and gratifying indeed must have been the association of 
two such religious enthusiasts as the aged Countess and the 
even more devout young lady in her twenties, Martha Laurens . 
Whitefield at his death in 1770 bequeathed the Bethesda 
Orphanage in Savannah to Lady Huntingdon. The events of 
the Revolution involved loss and confusion, and misunder- 
standings arising with her agent, Rev. William Piercy, she 
turned the matter over to Laurens for attention after his 
return to America.' 

After returning to London, where he awaited the outcome 
of his release on bond, Laurens had frequent conversations at 
Lord Rockingham's house with him and other members of 
Parliament looking towards a peace acknowledging American 
independence. Rockingham, who after North's resignation 
the 20th of March, 1782, became Prime Minister, found the 
French alliance a " choak-pear, " since Laurens "uniformly 
and firmly maintained . . . that France and the United States 
must treat and lay down their arms at the same time. "^ To 
the Duke of Richmond, a member of the Rockingham minis- 
try, with whom Laurens often was, he maintained the same 
position. "When Lord Shelbume was coming into place," 
as Secretary of State for the Home and Colonial departments 
in the Rockingham ministry, ^ he appointed a meeting with 

suflEiciently republican virtue, did not exempt him and his family from hard 
labor and illness and the vexation of managing negroes. (Champion to 
Laurens, July 22, 1785, et passim, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc.) 
Champion died in 1 791. 

' There is a batch of Huntingdon papers among the Laurens MSS. in the 
S. C. Hist. Soc. The difficulties appear to have been settled before 
Laurens's delayed arrival in America, but I have made no investigation 
as to that. ' Narrative, 61. 

3 Lord North resigned March 20, 1782, and was succeeded by Rocking- 
ham with Shelburne and Richmond in his cabinet. Rockingham died 
July I ; his ministry went to pieces and was succeeded by Shelburne' s. 
Shelbume resigned Feb. 24, 1783. Then followed the coalition ministry 



392 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens, the first of many conferences. At the first meeting 
Laurens urged measures for the rehef and exchange of six 
hundred American prisoners held at Plymouth and Gosport, 
which he says were adopted. He visited them, exerted him- 
self in their behalf with the agent, distributed about £200 from 
his own pocket for their relief — which, by the way, Congress 
refused to reimburse him — and secured much greater sums 
for their benefit from other persons.^ 

On the 4th of April Shelburne sent for Laurens and told him 
that he must be mistaken in asserting that the United States 
would not make peace separately from France, as Mr. Digges, 
just arrived from the Hague, brought the news that Mr. Adams 
assured him that the American ministers were free to treat 
independently of their ally.^ Laurens branded his report as 
false and offered to prove it by a personal journey. To this 
Shelburne consented, and at the same time dispatched Oswald 
to Franklin on a similar mission. This was the first advance 
Franklin received from the British government and led soon 
to negotiations for the provisional treaty. 

Laurens and Oswald separated at Ostend. At Haarlem 
Laurens met Adams, who "gave the He to everything Digges 
had written and said I was right in all I had asserted respecting 
peace. " Adams wrote an interesting account of the interview 
to Franklin: 

I found the old gentleman perfectly sound in his system of politics. He 
has a very poor opinion, both of the Integrity and Abilities of the new 
Ministry, as weU as of the old. He thinks they know not what they are 
about; that they are spoiled by the same insincerity, dupUcity, falsehood 
and corruption with the former. Lord Shelburne still flatters the King with 
ideas of conciliation, separate peace, etc. ; yet the nation and the best men 
in it are for universal peace and an express acknowledgment of American 
independence, and many of the best are for giving up Canada and Nova 

of Fox and North, announced April 2, under the nominal premiership of 
Portland. The coalition ministry resigned Dec. 8, 1783. 

' Letters of June, 1786, etc., and Narrative, 62; Wharton, v., 458. 

* Thomas Digges, formerly a Maryland merchant, was a British spy, 
besides being something of a thief, who was sometimes employed by Franklin, 
whom he defrauded. — See Wharton, and also Franklin's Works, index, 
Digges. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 393 

Scotia. His design seemed to be solely to know how far Digges's report was 
true. After an hour or two of conversation, I returned to Amsterdam, and 
left him to return to London.' 

The French, who already without any justification mis- 
trusted Laurens,^ misconceived his mission to Adams so 
completely as to construe it in a sense directly opposite to 
the truth, namely, that he was lending himself to a scheme 
for making a separate peace with England, leaving France 
to the vengeance of her ancient enemy. It was even rumored 
that America was to remain within the British Empire with 
complete autonomy under its own Parliament — a scheme 
which unquestionably floated enticingly before the brains of 
some English statesmen and the dispelling of which we shall 
see was a valuable service Laurens was to render.^ We shall 
find, too, how hard dying was the rumor here invented of 
Laurens's unfaithfulness to France. 

On the 23d Laurens and Oswald were back in London. 
Shelburne was convinced, but "disappointed and chagrined." 
Fox, who became Foreign Secretary in 1782, and many others 
strongly desired to make terms independently with America 
and continue the war with France, especially after Vergennes's 
refusal in the spring of that year to make peace on the terms 
of the peace of 1763.'' Another idea which persisted in the 
minds of a number of prominent English politicians and con- 

I Franklin's Works, viii., 477-8. The Jay manuscripts, v., 2, are 
quoted in Winsor, vii., 100, in describing the interview to the effect that 
Laurens "railed at the English ministry with something of the peevishness 
of age and ill-health. Richmond, he said, was the only one who seemed 
to have integrity & force of character. Rockingham was virtuous but 
feeble, & all the rest were as false & insidious as their predecessors, without 
possessing the same talents, & were much disposed to flatter the king's 
desire to refuse American independence. " 

A MS. giving an account of the mission to Adams, the basis of Laurens's 
account in his Narrative, is in the Emmet Col., N. Y. Pub. Lib. 

' Probably on account of his well-known insistence on full fishing rights 
and his championship of Arthur Lee, who was distasteful to the French 
court. Luzerne, the French representative in Philadelphia, had warned 
Vergennes to be on his guard against him, 3 Winsor, vii., 100. 

* Lecky, v., 156-7 and 196. 



394 Life of Henry Laurens 

siderably impeded the conclusion of the war was that it 
might be possible to arrange some sort of dependence or con- 
nection between Great Britain and America. Laurens's 
services, as just remarked, were of great value in dispelling 
both these delusions. 

On the 25th of April Laurens declared his intention of sur- 
rendering to the court of King's Bench, but on the 27th Shel- 
bume sent him an ample discharge. After being assured upon 
the honor of Oswald, the bearer, that there was no idea of a 
pardon involved, Laurens accepted the discharge of obligation 
to the court, but refused to consider the matter settled. 
Besides other objections presently to be explained, he was 
unwilling to be discharged upon terms which might be sup- 
posed to leave him under obligations, as the representative of 
the United States, to his captors. Writing the next year to 
John Adams, he says, "I suspected his Lordship's goodness 
when he offered to make me a present of myself, " indicating, 
as the context shows, that he considered the object to be to 
gain his influence for a separate peace with the United States.'' 

Congress having exchanged Burgoyne for General William 
Moultrie "and a number of other Americans,"^ Laurens, in 
accordance with his pledge before his release used his utmost 
efforts with Franklin to authorize his exchange for Comwallis, 
an officer of equal rank with Burgoyne. He "seemed so 
unhappy till it was accomplished," says Franklin, "that I 
ventured it" (June, 1782), but reserving to Congress the right 
of disavowal. The next month Congress, not having heard of 
Laurens's release from the Tower, to say nothing of his full 
discharge later, resolved that CornwalUs, who was then in 
England on parole, should be remanded immediately to 
America unless Laurens was forthwith released. When the 
news arrived of the liberation of their envoy, many considered 

» Wharton, vi., 284, n. Apr. 6, 1782, Shelburne had undertaken to dis- 
charge Laurens. "I repUed hastily," says Laurens, as the minister reached 
for his pen to write the discharge, "I dare not accept myself as a gift." 
He proposed exchange for Cornwallis. — Laurens's memorandum on back 
of his letter of Apr. 5, 1782, to Shelburne, in Emmet Col., N. Y. Pub. Lib. 

^ Moultrie's Memoirs, ii., 353. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 395 

that to confirm Franklin's act of exchange would amount to a 
little deserved gratuity to Cornwallis which the interests of 
America would not allow. It was probably the unwillingness 
to humiliate Laurens and Franklin that prevented a disavowal. 
As it was, no vote was taken one way or the other, and so 
Congress was saved the charge of a double breach of faith. ^ 

In May Laurens, at last released from all impediment as a 
prisoner, journeyed to Amsterdam to offer his aid to his sub- 
stitute Adams in the business with which he had originally been 
charged ; but Adams had matters already in hand and did not 
think it necessary to tell Laurens that his powers in the matter 
of the loan and treaty were to continue only until he should 
arrive.^ Pleased to find himself unburdened, Laurens pro- 
ceeded to southern France to visit at Vigan his daughters and 
his ill brother, none of whom he had seen for seven years. 
Remaining there for fifteen days, twelve of which were spent 
chiefly in bed, he proceeded to Bordeaux by way of Montpellier 
and Cette on the coast of the Mediterranean, where he tried 
the sea bathing for his health, which was now so feeble that he 
was exhausted by dictating a letter. ^ He proceeded in July to 
Nantes in the old Huguenot country of his ancestors to em- 
bark for the United States, but in view of warnings of the 
danger of a second capture, he consented to demand of England 
a safe conduct home, and hence about the middle of October 
repaired to London.'' 

Without being aware of it, Laurens at this time became the 

1 Madison Papers, ii., 206, 479. A striking coincidence was that Corn- 
wallis was Constable of the Tower of London; hence Laurens was his 
prisoner. Col. John Laurens was Captain General of prisoners in America, 
and Cornwallis was thus the prisoner of the son of his own prisoner. 

2 Adams finally secured the $10,000,000 loan and Oct. 8, 1782, he signed 
the treaty of amity and commerce with the Netherlands. — Treaties and 
Conventions between the U. S., etc., since July 4, I'jy6, 749. 

3 MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. For the movements of Laurens's children and 
brother 1775-82, see the beginning of Chapter XVII. 

4 He was in Prance as late as Sept. 19, 1782, and had reached England 
earlier than Oct. 30th. His route from Nantes lay through Angers, Mans, 
Alengon, Rouen, Abbeville, and Calais. — Laurens to Mesdames Babut and 
Labouch^re, Sept. 18, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



396 Life of Henry Laurens 

subject of a serious attack in Congress. September 17th that 
body voted unanimously that his services "cannot be dispensed 
with. " But a day or so later the Parliamentary Register was 
received containing his petition of December i, 1781, to the 
House of Commons. ^ Madison was so shocked that he desired 
Laurens's commission annulled. Independent of this, he 
wrote, Laurens's conduct as detailed in his own letter of May 
30th was "far from unexceptionable" ; but this appears rather 
an afterthought provoked in an already ill-disposed mind by 
the news of the petition.^ Its language, he maintained, 
though pardonable in a private person, "evidently rendered 
Mr. Laurens no longer a fit depository for the public dignity 
and rights which he had so far degraded. " 

There are so many circumstances relating to this gentleman during his 
captivity [he wrote] which speak a bias towards the British nation, and 
an undue cordiality with its new leaders, that I dread his participation in 
the work of peace. 

What was thus characterized as "undue cordiality" was the 
means, we shall see, by which Laurens was to impress upon 
the ministry the hopelessness of their plans and to furnish to 
his colleagues in Paris information the value of which they 
freely acknowledged. 

Madison argued that the petition "(i) ignored Laurens's 
official position as an envoy from the United States, and (2) 
that it made services to Great Britain and indifference to the 
American cause a ground for indulgence. " 

' Congress was not aware of his petition of June 23, 1 781, to the ministry. 

^Letter of Sept. 24, 1782. An unfavorable attitude towards Laurens 
on Madison's part seems to be indicated by the fact that he was one of six 
members, thirty-two being present, who, on June 14th, 1781, before any- 
thing whatever of his conduct in the Tower was known, voted against 
exchanging him for Burgoyne; and that he refers with dissatisfaction to 
the personal partiality and prejudice in favor of Laurens which played a 
part in the debates. 

As another example of Madison's judgment of men of the opposite faction, 
notice the following from his letter of Dec. 18, 1784, to Monroe, in the tran- 
scripts in the Carnegie Inst, for Letters from Members of the Continental 
Congress: " R. H. Lee earnestly advocated the appointment of Jefferson 
to the Court of Spain only in my opinion to open those of G. Britain and 
France to himself and friends." 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 397 

How far Laurens was justified in passing over his title as 
envoy, which his captors had refused to recognize, and re- 
ferring to that of President of Congress by which he had been 
officially addressed by representatives of the British govern- 
ment, each person must decide for himself. His object was 
doubtless thus to establish out of their own mouth his right to 
be treated as a prisoner of war. Madison's second criticism 
is grossly unjust. The most critical examination of the peti- 
tion will fail to reveal any plea of indifference to the American 
cause or any service to Great Britain, save the statement that 
he had striven to avoid if possible the precipitation of war — 
surely not a blameworthy attitude for anyone towards any 
fairly satisfactory government under which one has been born 
and reared; an attitude, by the way, in which Mr. Madison 
himself was one day to go much further with far less justifica- 
tion when charged with maintaining his country's dignity 
against this same enemy. That he had treated the helpless 
minority and prisoners with humanity, all fair-minded men 
to-day will doubtless think to his credit.^ 

' We may notice here the following extracts in reference to Laurens from 
a letter of Oswald to Shelburne, Dec. 29, 1782: 

"Ever since this explanation (relative to the question of parol) he is 
in good humor, and occasionally Ukes to talk as an Enghshman, there 
may arise some benefit to the public by an attention of some kind being 
properly shown to him, so as to turn his bias still more our way, or at least 
to fix it where it seems to rest. " — ^Wharton, v., 746. 

This is not very creditable in a friend of upwards of thirty years' standing 
whose honor Laurens placed so high and so impUcitly trusted. In conver- 
sation with a person whom he so regarded Laurens might without any 
impropriety have used expressions which the unsuspected spirit in which 
he was watched might estimate to his disadvantage. That Latirens, when 
he arrived in Paris and found the treaty practically completed, should have 
had an article added to save the Anaericans and deprive the British of many 
thousands of dollars shows how incorrect were Mr. Oswald's surmises 
as to his British bias. 

To the expressions of Benjamin Vaughn the secret British agent, "Mr. 
Oswald perhaps may teU you of Mr. Laurens's strange behavior here," I 
attach very little importance. It might be interpreted in entirely opposite 
senses; and in any event it is nothing but an enemy's surmise regarding a 
man whose acts now speak for themselves. 



398 Life of Henry Laurens 

Laurens's friends opposed the recall upon two grounds: 
First, they denied the authenticity of the petition, since it 
appeared in an enemy's publication, was not alluded to in his 
letter of May 30th, and was inconsistent with his known char- 
acter. "Several," says Madison, "professed a readiness to 
renounce their friend, in case the authenticity of the paper 
should be verified." Secondly, it was maintained that the 
petition, even if genuine, did not impeach his fidehty. Mad- 
ison states that ' ' the first objection was the prevailing one ; the 
second was abetted by but few." Another, and apparently 
decisive, factor was Laurens's well-known determination to 
obtain as full fishing rights as possible. Osgood of Massa- 
chusetts wrote John Adams that, "as the members of the East- 
em States had reHed on him to join with you in supporting 
our claim and right to the fisheries, they could not consent to 
his suspension. Had it not been for this, he would have been 
suspended."^ Congress refused, September 20th, to dispense 
with his services. It appears that, had the authenticity of 
the petition been established, or had the more elaborate peti- 
tion of June 23d been known, or had he been without the sup- 
port of the fishing States, Laurens would have been subjected 
to the deep and damaging humiliation of a recall voted as a 
condemnation and want of confidence. As it was, he escaped 
this cruel injustice by a sectional, self-interested, personal vote, 
helped on by disbelief in what was really a fact. If such a blow 
had fallen, it would not have been entirely without a certain 
retributive character for its persecuted subject's having missed 
the opportunity when he was one of the dispensers of honor 
and shame of securing for another suspected public servant, 
Silas Deane, level, open-minded justice. 

Such was contemporary opinion of what has sometimes 
been called Laurens's "submission, " and this entirely unjusti- 
fiable word has probably caused many who have never seen 
his petition to suppose that he in some way proved unfaithful 
to his American allegiance. On the contrary, he did not in the 
slightest modify or compromise his independence or obHgations 
as an American citizen or official. The fact that the petition 

' Wharton, v., 746. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 399 

is generally regarded as the most regrettable incident in his 
career is eloquent tribute to the rectitude of his Hf e. Let us re- 
member that he was petitioning for release or milder treatment 
after fourteen months of suffering, so far as he knew, utterly 
neglected by Congress. With the purpose of showing how 
little deserving he was of being made a special object of retalia- 
tion, he prefaced his request with a recital of facts in his history, 
no one of which is in the slightest to his discredit either as a 
man, a Christian, or a patriot and which might have been made 
with equal truth by many of the noblest and most valuable men 
on the American side — a recital made, moreover, in correction 
of false statements to the contrary circulated for his injury. 
The only impropriety was that an American envoy should 
forget his dignity sufficiently to ask the same moderation and 
humanity which he had himself always exercised. Robert 
R. Livingston's criticism was that "the language it speaks does 
not consist with the dignified character he holds." I will 
leave the matter with a quotation which embodies the opinion 
of two not overly friendly critics that seem to me to go the 
full length which any judgment claiming judicial character can 
admit. The editor of the Madison Papers says : ^ 

The debilitating and protracted sufferings of Mr. Laurens in the Tower 
require every allowance for the tenor and tone of his representation to 
ParUament; especially as after his liberation, and whilst the definite 
arrangements for it were on foot, it appears that he gave the most active 
proofs of his devoted patriotism and vigilant zeal in guarding against the 
insidious poHcy of the British cabinet. It is known that this was the view 
taken of it by Mr. Madison. 

After his release, December 31, 1781, Laurens, we will recall, 
remained in England, a few days excepted, until May 1 1 , 1782, 
when he left London for southern France, and returned to 
England about the first of October to demand a safe conduct 
to America. He used every opportunity with the ministry 

^ I., 178, n. The references to the attempt to recall Laurens are as follows: 
Journals of Congress for July 11, Sept. 17 and 20, 1782; Secret Journals, iii., 
213-6; Wharton i., 583, and v., 730-1, 743-7; Madison Papers, i., 175-8, 
202-6, 479-81 ; Rives's Madison, i., 346. 



400 Life of Henry Laurens 

and the many influential persons with whom he was thrown to 
impress, first, the necessity of England's promptly terminating 
the war, and second, the positive and unequivocal assurance 
that the hopes for a separate peace not including France were 
impossible, third, the futility of the idea of preserving some sort 
of dependency on England, and fourth, the determination of 
the Americans not to provide compensation for the Loyalists.^ 

^ Laurens to Franklin, June 24, 1782, in Wharton, v., 505, says: 
" I could not comprehend the metaphysical idea of others who wished, as 
it seemed to me, for somewhat of a convention between Great Britain and 
America like platonic love, something which they mumbled but could not 
define and which, considering their good sense, created a suspicion of their 
sincerity." 

The following paper from Mr. Sinclair, a member of Parliament from 
Scotland, Feb. 22, 1782, and Laurens's memorandum of his reply illustrate 
his activities in England during the first part of 1782 (Laurens MSS. in L. I. 
Hist. Soc.) : 

" Park Street— Westmr, 
"Friday morng. 

" Mr. Sinclair presents his compliments to Mr. Laurens. He believes that 
Mr. Bremar has shown to him some papers, called Public Hints, & there 
are several members of the House of Commons, who are disposed to enter 
into such a Union. Mr. Sinclair knows that they will be much puzzled 
about their conduct tomorrow and wishes therefore to have the pleasure 
of some conversation with Mr. Laurens this morning (if Mr. L. is at home 
between 10 & 11 o'clock) upon the following query: 

" Query 

" The American war can only be carried on, ist For Revenue, the original 
cause of the war, which is given up. 2dly For sovereignty which the 
Americans are in possession of, but which is disputed by Great Britain — 
3dly, Commerce — in respect to which the Americans are not bound. 4thly. 
Alliance or Federal connection as guarantying colonial possessions &ca &ca. 

" Queritur — If the 2d point sovereignty or independence was given up, is 
it in the power (consistent with existing treaties) & is it consonant with the 
inclination of the Americans to settle the other two points of commerce & 
of Federal Alliance in a manner advantageous to Great Britain? 

" Henry Laurens Esq. 

" Fludyer St 
" Westmr 
" (First door) " 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 401 

But he found himself unable to perform these valuable services 
without incurring suspicion and slander. 

There had been busy bodies [he wrote] not only whispering but signify- 
ing by letters, which they took care should come to my knowledge, their 
surprise at my continuing in the kingdom so very long, when God knows 
I remained there scarcely a week after receiving by your hands a notifica- 
tion of my enlargement.' 

His impulse was to defeat his enemies by his intended de- 
parture for home, but his shattered health forbad his incurring 
the hardship of a winter voyage, and so, avoiding all public 
places and characters, he prepared to await the spring some- 
where on the European side.* But just as he was considering 
whether to remain at Bath for his health or withdraw from the 
country on account of the continued anonymous attacks, he 
received, November 12th, the act of Congress ordering him to 
join the peace commissioners.^ He had already in May 
received a copy of the commission directing himself, Franklin, 

On the back of this note Laurens has written : 

"Mr. Sinclair M. P. for in Scotland 22d Febry 1782 Answered ver- 
bally same morning : There is a gentleman (Mr. John Adams) at Amsterdam 
or Hague with full powers from Congress to treat with Grt. Britain when- 
ever G. B. shall be disposed to treat — the opinions of Mr. Laurens estimated 
at the highest will be of no more value than the opinion of any other man 
& he can only give his private opinion referred to in the resolutions of Con- 
gress 22d April 1778 — & to the Treaties of Commerce & Alliance between 
the K of France & United States of NA. America is free to enter into 
commercial treaties with any nation. 

"Treaty eventual & defensive will be null after the termination of the 
war. America will not treat but in conjunction with her ally or with con- 
sent first formally obtained — little ground for expecting the latter. No 
medium between acknowledgement of independence withdrawing forces — 
& prosecuting the war. 

" Federal alliance with G. B. may be hoped for, may be effected in course 
of time & events. Nations & individuals are governed by their interests. 

" Debts due by America, will these be paid? Ans — an article for treaty; 
they certainly ought to be paid & I have not the least doubt will be, & the 
American courts open for recovery of debts by Lrs of Attorney &c — ." 

' Laurens to Oswald, Sept. 19, 1782, L. I. Hist. Soc. Laurens MSS. 

^ lb. 

3 Laurens to John Adams, Nov. 12, 1782, in L. I. Hist. See. MSS. 
26 



402 Life of Henry Laurens 

Adams, Jay, and Jefferson to negotiate ; but he conceived from 
the phraseology that Congress had not expected that all the 
five wotdd necessarily participate ; and as Franklin, Adams, and 
Jay were already upon the ground, all, he urged, of superior 
ability to himself, he declined to put his impoverished country 
to the expense of supporting a superfluous commissioner. 
To Adams's inquiry, " Don't you wish yourself one of the peace 
makers?" he replied that he had no ambition to be associated 
with famous treaties.^ Adams esteemed Laurens highly and 
regretted this decision. 

I had great pleasure [he wrote to Foreign Secretary Livingston, June 9th] 
in seeing my old friend perfectly at Hberty and perfectly just in his political 
opinions. Neither the air of England, nor the seducing address of her 
inhabitants, nor the terrors of the Tower have made any change in him. 

To Franklin he expressed his regret at losing Laurens's 
cooperation. 

I was very sorry to learn from him that in a letter to your excellency from 
Ostend he had declined serving in the commission for peace. I had vast 
pleasure in his conversation, for I found him possessed of the most exact 
judgment concerning our enemies, and of the same noble sentiments in all 
things which I saw in him in Congress.* 

Independent of the solicitations of Franklin, who wrote as 
warmly and more persuasively than Adams, Laurens consid- 
ered the refusal of Congress to accept his resignation as 
imperative, and as soon as permitted by the tortiires of the 
gout, which had held him steadily for a year, he posted night 
and day to Paris. He arrived only two days before the signing 
of the preliminary articles, and his influence in shaping the 
treaty was of course small. He supported "with great firm- 
ness, " says Adams, the fishing rights ; and the clause in article 
VII forbidding the British to carry off negroes or other Amer- 
ican property was due to him. ^ Adams records in his journal : 

^ Laurens to John Adams, Aug. 21, \'j%2, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. 
Soc. * John Adams to Franklin, Jime 13, 1782. 

3 Wharton, vi., 87-8, 90, and 91. The British nevertheless refused com- 
pensation for the stolen negroes, and Jay's unsuccessful attempt in 1794 
to secure payment ended the matter. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 4^3 

I was very happy that Mr. Laurens came in, although it was the last 
day of the conferences, and wish he could have been sooner. His appre- 
hension, notwithstanding his deplorable affliction under the recent loss of 
so excellent a son, is as quick, his judgment as sound, and his heart as firm 
as ever. He had an opportunity of examining the whole, and judging and 
approving; and the article which he caused to be inserted at the very last, 
that no property should be carried ofE — which would most probably, in 
the hurry and multipUcity of affairs, have escaped us — was worth a longer 
journey, if that had been aU. But his name and weight is added, which is 
of much greater consequence. 

The most serious of Wharton's groundless insinuations, so 
much to be regretted in a scholar of his standing, relate to this 
part of Laurens's life. Says Wharton:^ 

The same irresolution* was exhibited by him when released and when the 
question of his assuming the position of peace commissioner came up. 
Whether he wotdd act or not; what was his position as to negotiating apart 
from France; what was his precise attitude as to the fisheries; why, after 
peace, he should have remained abroad for three years, are questions as to 
which in his correspondence the same irresoluteness is displayed. If the 
letters of Benjamin Vaughn in the Lansdowne collection are to be relied on, 
Laurens was ready after his release and exchange to enter into peace 
negotiations in London apart from Franklin and Jay, and that he was de- 
terred from this course by Adams's refusal to act with him. 

The absurdity of Benjamin Vaughn, the secret British agent, 
or anybody else's surmising that Laurens was ready to prepare 
such infamy for himself as to undertake the scheme which is 
suggested for him in the last sentence quoted ought to have 
been sufficient to prevent the story's having been passed along, 
even with an "if." Had John Adams ever "deterred" a 
colleague from an attempt like that, his industrious recording 
pen, which seldom neglected the meritorious acts of its owner, 
would have done its duty by the incident and would not, from 
first to last, have been so unstinted in the praise of Laurens ; 
not to speak of the fact that he would have probably re- 
ported it to Congress, with easily imagined results. Such 
material is hardly the subject for respectable history, but 

^ I., 581-2. 

» Which he groundlessly attributes to Laurens while in the Tower. — 
D. D. W. 



404 Life of Henry Laurens 

reminds one rather of such whispers as dispensed by the author 
of the following anonymous letter among Laurens's papers, 

on which he endorsed, "Mrs. W as supposed." The 

author, after professing to give him the secret intentions and 
acts of the ministers, continues thus: 

Great pains are taken to give a wrong opinion of you to the French, to 
Dr. Franklin also to the Dutch, by saying to them you had some dark views, 
or in these words : ' ' What is his business in England ? " "He has no business 
to be in England" . . . The Junto wish you gone. 

Laurens's own words at every period suJSiciently answer these 
questions. As to the absurd supposition that a man who was 
so reluctant as to refuse to act in the treaty making until Con- 
gress refused to excuse him should meantime have concocted 
a daring scheme of his own for a separate peace, consider the 
following memorandum of his conversation with a Member 
of Parliament, February 22, 1782, at the very time in question : 

America wiU not treat but in conjunction with her ally or with consent 
first formally obtained — little ground for expecting the latter.' 

He gives the following general account of his activities in 
England throughout 1782: 

I had considered my residence in England not only as proper for recover- 
ing my health, but also as essential to the service of the United States. I 
embraced various opportunities of informing the people in general of the 
ground and nature of the subsisting dispute between the two countries, of 
which they had been amazingly ignorant, of contradicting false reports 
respecting America and of convincing some of the most intelligent as weU 
as some of the most adverse to the doctrine that a ftdl acknowledgement of 
our independence was consistent with and would eventually contribute to 
promote the true interest of Great Britain, and I have some ground for 
believing that my labors in some degree facilitated the great business which 
has just been completed . . . and I humbly think if I were in England 
at this moment I might be of more real service to my cotmtry than I can 
possibly perform in my present situation.* 

' Laurens's memorandum of his conversation with Sinclair on back of 
latter's queries in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. See entire paper at pp. 
400-1, n., above. 

* Laurens to Livingston from Paris, Dec. 15, 1782. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 405 

The next day, December i6th, he wrote the following im- 
portant letter to the representatives of South Carolina in 
Congress, which indicates that, instead of being faithless to 
the French alliance, he was more loyal to it than any of his 
colleagues. What would have been the outcome if Laurens 
had been upon the ground to uphold the position of Franklin 
before that gentleman yielded to the distrust of Adams and 
Jay we can only conjecture. ^ 

Upon my arrival here I found the preliminary articles so far advanced as 
to require discussion only upon a few points respecting the fishery and the 
loyalists. These indeed were important and finally the former was well 
concluded. I urged an addition of that latter part of Article 7th prohibit- 
ing the carrying away of negroes or other property, which I hope will lay 
a foundation for a future claim. 

One of the first questions I asked of my colleagues was, whether we were 
proceeding agreeably to the instructions and acts of Congress, particularly 
respecting boundaries, and the confidence and concurrence of the Court of 
France. To the former a satisfactory answer was returned. To the latter 
a reply was made in nearly the same terms as you will see in our joint letter 
with some enlargements, and I was not altogether convinced. But the 
evil, if any, had taken place and could not be remedied. Wherefore I 
subscribed from the necessity of the case. Should the Court make no 
complaint to Congress on this point, all will be well; otherwise you will 
please to urge what may appear to you necessary for suspending a judgment 
against me until I shall have an opportunity of answering for myself. 

The latter part of Article five gave me much uneasiness, and I have 
frequently signified my apprehension to the other gentlemen. "Or other- 
wise" seemed to comprehend everything; to ntdlify almost the whole of 
the preceding restrictions, and may engender troublesome, perhaps danger- 
ous, contests. Some of the gentlemen are not so much alarmed ; neverthe- 
less I hope the present ambiguity will be removed by a precise explication 
in the definitive treaty. — I mean not to cast, or even to insinuate the 
smallest degree of censure upon any one of the gentlemen. Every one 
appears to me to have acted with zeal and disinterestedness for his 
country's good ; but for my own part I should have paid strict obedience 
to the solemn act of Congress in assurance to the Court of France of 
so recent a date as the 3d of October last. Other instructions I have not 
received, and would have opposed that Court had it appeared essential to 
the interests of my country to the uttermost. "The Count Vergennes 

' This letter, the best account of Laurens's relation to the treaty itself, 
is not in the Diplomatic Correspondence, as it was sent to this State delega- 
tion and not to the Congressional authorities. 



4o6 Life of Henry Laurens 

seemed surprised, but not displeased." Granted; but if the Count, or 

rather the Court, should be displeased, this is neither the time nor the 

place for displaying resentment. So much, gentlemen, I have taken the 

liberty of saying in confidence. 

He goes on to warn against trusting too much in England's friendship:] 

Let us proceed warily with new converts and those who are friends 

perforce. 

His private letters bear the same testimony of unswerving 
loyalty to our ally. The determination to trust France unless 
convinced that she was ready to sacrifice American interests 
and his equal determination then to oppose her are expressed 
to his intimate friend Gervais as follows, December 14, 1782: 

I was loath to believe the reports unfavorable to the sincerity of the 
French court, though hearing it' "upon the testimony of two witnesses. 
. . . But we should take caution against imbibing prejudices and never 
determine our judgment until we have heard both parties; mine is still 
open." 

The manner of his speech upon this subject in England 
Laurens describes in a letter of December loth, 1782, to 
Joshua Johnson, Esq., at Nantes: 

The plainness of my dealing, however, with many of the English politi- 
cians convinced them of our determination not to lay down arms until the 
conclusion of a treaty or treaties which should terminate the war with 
France as well as with America. This is now clearly understood by every- 
body and particularly provided for in the preliminary articles of the 30th 
November. 

These extracts may be concluded by the following from a 
letter of December 24, 1782, from Paris to his friend Manning 
in London: 

Be not flattered by the preliminaries with hopes of a separate peace, with 
hopes of shaking hands with men who are now caUed "brethren, " nor of any 
peace until you are sure of a "decisive conclusion" for peace with France. 
. . . Shake hands, with aU my heart. I ardently wish for a peace ; but you 
must prepare yourself for shaking hands with America as you would shake 
hands with the subjects of Prance, Spain, Prussia or any other independent 
nation at the termination of war and you must habituate yourselves in the 
same idea of reconciliation with America which you would entertain of re- 
conciliation with any other independent power. You must think of sending 
ambassadors to the court of America . . . and treating the United States as 

' His words to this point are paraphrased. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 407 

a sovereign. Hence, sir, you perceive that my opinion is there cannot be, 
there ought not to be, a separate peace between Great Britain and America. 
Let me add that much as I wish for an end to the war, I would rather per- 
severe in it, lose all my sons and daughters too, my own life and my whole 
estate than subscribe to a separate inglorious peace. No, my friend ; let 
us shake hands, when every bone of contention shall be removed, upon the 
broad bottom of honor and good faith. Our friendship wiU then endure. ' 

Instead of ever dreaming of a separate peace, if Laurens is 
subject to any criticism it is for an excess of loyalty to our ally, 
even to literal adherence to Congress's October instructions, 
as the following memoranda will show:^ 

Saturday, December 14, Adams gave Laurens a copy of the 
intercepted letter of the French minister Marbois at Phila- 
delphia to Vergennes, March 13, 1782. Marbois spoke severely 
of Samuel Adams and the American claim to the fisheries. 
"There are some judicious persons," he continued, "to whom 
we may speak of giving up the fisheries & the West for the 
sake of peace, but there are enthusiasts who fly out at this 
idea." France, he asserted, could swing the balance on 
account of the even division of parties ; and more of a sort to 
offend American pride and chill American friendship. 

Laurens was hurt that the letter, if deemed important, was 
not shown him on his arrival and protested that he did not 
regard its contents as sufficient ground for violating their 
instructions. 

The violation of their instructions sat heavily on Laurens, 
and in a conversation with Adams on the 19th of December he 
repeated his doubts as to their having done right in disregard- 
ing them and signing the preliminary treaty without consulting 
France. Adams replied with severe censures on Vergennes. 
Laurens replied, "That may be for aught I know, but 'tis 
certain our instructions have been broken & so far he has an 
advantage over us. " Adams replied, ' ' They were very foolish 

I Laurens to David Hartley, Aug. 31, 1782, expresses the most emphatic 
declaration of the impossibility of America's making a peace separate from 
France. In addition to this letter in the L. I. Hist. Soc. MSS., many of his 
others for months previous are to the same effect. 

^ Laurens's memoranda in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. The quota- 
tion is not necessarily verbatim except where quotation marks are used. 



4o8 Life of Henry Laurens 

& unfortunate instructions, I dare say of his procuring by a 
small majority in Congress." Laurens replied that Congress 
was pledged before the world to those instructions, and asked 
how we came by the Marbois letter, whose expressions unfav- 
orable to America when discovered to Jay had caused the 
disregard of the instructions. Adams replied he had it from 
Jay; Laurens pressed as to how Jay got it; Adams replied, 
"Mr. Jay can best inform you himself." Seeing Laurens 
hurt, Adams rephed after about a minute's profound silence, 
"I suppose he got it from the English Commissioners; they 
intercepted the letter." Laurens considered that Adams's 
manner showed a want of confidence and took his leave, Mr. 
Adams meantime growing quite angry and excited in his 
denunciation of France.^ 

Whether right lay with Laurens or with Adams and Jay 
opinions will differ. His unswerving loyalty to our ally is 
admirable in showing his sacred regard for contract and moral 
obligation, particularly in view of his cautious suspicions and 
warnings against French selfishness and guile at the time of the 
forming of the alliance. Even now he would be true to his 
maxim of "hear the other party." Though the statesman, 
says Bismarck, cannot foresee the future, he is obliged to act 
exactly as though he did; and in this instance Americans must 
honor the name of Jay for taking the lead, boldy acting on his 
suspicions and breaking his instructions "as I would break 
this pipe. " 

It was no hollow boast for Laurens to speak of losing his sons 
and daughters along with his own life rather than subscribe 
to a dishonorable peace. On hearing of the wound received 
by Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens at Tullifinny Hill, the 
father wrote "my dear son and beloved fellow country-man " : 

Go on, my son, love and be ready at all times to bleed for your country. 
"If we do meet again, why, we shaU smile, if not, why, then our parting 
was well made. "^ 

' Abstract of Laurens's memoranda ends here. Adams's statement as 
to the history of the Marbois letter is, of course, correct. 

^ Laurens to John Laurens, May 30, 1779, in Laurens MSS. in L, I. Hist. 
Soc. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 409 

The hour for which both were so bravely ready had come. 
The same day that the father received the mandate of Con- 
gress to join the commissioners for peace, November 12, 1782 , 
he heard through John Adams of the death of his son at Com- 
bahee Ferry the 27th of August — almost the last life to be 
given in the American cause. '^ He might indeed take to him- 
self what comfort there was in the consolation offered by 
Adams, quoting the saying of the Earl of Ossory, "I would 
not exchange my dead son for any living son in the world." 
Adams spoke, if not literal truth, something very near it when 
he said, " Our country has lost its most promising character. "^ 
Combining the virtues of the Roman and the Christian, 
Laurens's sorrow was nobly blended with deep joy at the 
success of the cause for which the son had died . 

The broad, blessed sunshine of peace is at hand [he wrote December 13th] ; 
. . . Old men may sit under the shade of their fig trees; weep for joy 
of their losses; exultingly may each sufferer say, "Thank God I had a son 
who dared to die in defense of his country, ' ' and sing nunc dimittis. Young 
men ought with vigor to engage in the great work of establishing the new 
government by wisdom in justice and in righteousness, that their children's 
children may rejoice and say "this is the work of God ; our fathers were the 
honored instruments." 

Laurens remained in Paris from the later days of November, 
1782, until near the close of January, when, prostrate in body 
and mind, he repaired to Bath, the only place where he received 
any benefit. After remaining there five weeks he went up to 
London. Until the signing of the definitive treaty in Sep- 
tember he was making his painful journeys between London 
and Paris as his own views or the urgent advice of Franklin 
dictated for the interests of his country. During these months 
in England he strove to further the interests of the United 
States in three points particularly: removing the British 
troops from America, defeating the desire of England to secure 
some effective guarantee in the definitive treaty for reimburs- 
ing the loyalists, and securing equal reciprocal trade relations 
between the two countries. The continued presence of the 

' Henry Laurens, Jr., to James Laurens, Nov. 12, 1782, in Laurens MSS. 
in L. I. Hist. See. ' Wharton, v., 854. 



4IO Life of Henry Laurens 

enemy's troops in New York especially, he repeatedly urged 
upon the ministers, could have no effect except to injure Eng- 
land by keeping alive the hostility of the Americans and thus 
preventing the renewal of the old commercial relations from 
which the elder country had formerly derived such benefits. 
The subject on which he sought most earnestly to convert 
British opinion was the trade relations. In 1783 Pitt intro- 
duced a liberal measure in line with his desire to place the 
trade on almost as free terms as it had been before the war, 
but Parliament would not consent.^ While he admitted that 
the bill suited the purposes of the United States, Laurens held 
"that there ought to be two to a bargain" and hence a treaty 
was the proper means. He suspected, in short, that the 
British intended by holding several important ports to force 
commercial advantages or to intimidate the United States 
into providing for the loyalists, and considered that the 
presence of foreign troops was an insult to which the public 
honor could not submit.^ 

" But are we not very liberal in opening the trade upon such terms?" many 
members of Parliament asked. 

"Undoubtedly you want to purchase rice and other provisions for home 
consumption and for the West Indies," he repUed. "You are desirous of 
selling your woolen and iron wares. You are liberal, but we cannot profit 
off your bounty while the sergeant's guard is in the house. " 

"Don't be uneasy; the troops will be removed as soon as possible." 

"Suspend, then, your beneficent acts until they are removed. Possi- 
bly America may ask. When you were accustomed to send troops to that 
country, were you puzzled to find transport ships for the purpose?" 

He encouraged Fox, the foreign minister, to believe that the 
United States were ready immediately upon the removal of the 
troops to enter into a commercial treaty of mutual advantage. 
April 1 6th he arrived in Paris, where the negotiations were 
continued in conjunction with his colleagues, but he was soon 
convinced that "reciprocity appears now to mean enjoyment 
on one side and restrictions on the other. ' ' So incensed was he 

' Stanhope's Pitt, i., no. 

^ His correspondence on the subject is found in Wharton, vi., under the 
following dates: March 6, 15, 17; Aprils, 10; June 17; August 2, 9, 1783. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 411 

at England's course, particularly regarding commerce and the 
troops, that he threatened in letters to private friends in that 
country to advise measures of retaliation on returning to 
America. Your country, he wrote, February 22, 1783, will 
have the hostility of the world until she abandons the principle, 
"We dare to do and we will do anything that we have power for 
accomplishing." When the United States was striving in 
1785-6 to form a commercial treaty with England and secure 
the removal of the troops, Laurens wrote, June 2, 1786, that 
he recommended the same measures while in England which 
Congress was now aiming at and "strove to enforce the neces- 
sity of adopting them at Trenton. " ^ 

Leaving Paris June 7, 1783, Laurens was again in London 
on the nth. Though very sick and looking more like a corpse 
than a man, he was back in Paris July 23d on an urgent call 
from Franklin. Having conferred with his colleagues on 
the prospect of England's receiving an American minister, 
forming a commercial treaty and signing a definitive peace, 
he returned at their request to sound the government, particu- 
larly on the question of a minister. Arriving August 3d, he 
had interviews with Foreign Minister Fox and Premier Port- 
land. The former greatly desired to see an American minister 
accredited to Great Britain and was not unfavorable to open- 
ing trade relations ; but he had to recognize the opposite views 
of many Englishmen. The exclusion of American vessels from 
the West Indies, he said, was intended to furnish England 
something to treat for in forming the commercial treaty. The 
performance of this mission occasioned Laurens's name not to 
appear on the definitive treaty of peace, which was signed 
September 3d during his absence. 

Regarding the loyalists, as in Paris, so afterwards in London, 
Laurens was positive to the ministers and other leaders that 
nothingmorethan was contained in the provisional articles could 
possibly be done. He opposed any compensation except in a 
few deserving cases of special hardship, as all that America 

^Secret Journals, iii., 535; Bancroft, vi., 147-51; Fiske's Critical 
Period, 136-9. Congress sat atTrenton from Nov. i, 1784, to Dec. 4, 1784, 
inclusive. 



412 Life of Henry Laurens 

had done to them was more than counterbalanced by British 
plundering and wrong. ^ This feeling is strongly expressed in 
his reply to the application for reimbursement for Lady Juliana 
Penn: 

Looking at the land smoaking from the embers of towns and cities, echo- 
ing the shrieks of ravished virgins, crimsoned with the blood of brave de- 
fenders, & of many an innocent infant massacred by the hands of Britain's 
ruthless allies, I cannot refrain from tears nor from repeating the advice, 
"Don't chafe the survivors"; rather pour balm upon their wounds & by 
the charm of sympathy lead them on to forget injuries.^ 

Laurens's services during 1782-3-4, terminating only with 
his departure for America,^ were of great importance and 
entitle him in a very true sense to be considered the first 
minister of the United States to England. "Possibly it may 
appear," he wrote, "that I have been of more real service to 
my Country by a Residence of five or six Weeks in Leicester 
fields than could have been effected by a whole Year's idleness 
in France.""* He dealt directly with the ministry; the sub- 
jects of his negotiations were the same as those of John Adams 
when accredited to that court a little later, and, it may be 
added, his success was also the same. 

Laurens wrote, August 9, 1783, that his time was so taken 
up with public business and applications of people in England 
about their American affairs that he hardly had an hour a week 
for his private interests. His long absence from his plantations 
and the ravages of the British in Georgia and South Carolina 
reduced him, tmder the heavy expenses of himself and family, 
to allowing Congress to pay part of his expenses in Europe, 
which it was his intention to avoid except under necessity. 
It will be recalled that before leaving Am.erica he dispatched a 
cargo of indigo to Europe against which to draw, but was 
plimdered of the greater portion. Yet in April, 1782, he 
declined Franklin's offer of money. 

I Laurens to Bridgen, Aug. 10, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

* Laurens to Wm. Manning, Dec. 5, 1782, in ib. 
3 Wharton, vi., 795-7. 

* Laurens to Jas. Lovell, from London, Apr. 7, 1783, in Mag. of Amer. 
Hist., xiii., 278. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 413 

I know too well, how much you have been harassed for that article; and 
too well how low our American finances in Europe are; therefore if I can 
possibly avoid it, I wiU not further trouble you nor impoverish them, or 
not tiU the last extremity. Hitherto I have supported myself without 
borrowing from anybody, and I am determined to continue living upon my 
own stock while it lasts; the stock is indeed small; my expenses have been 
and shall be in a suitably modest stile. ' 

As late as September 5 , 1 782 , he was still ' ' able to support my- 
self in a frugal style. " November 22 Benjamin Vaughn, who, 
like John Laurens, had married one of William Manning's daugh- 
ters, wrote Franklin that, from his intimacy with Mr. Manning, 
who "is and always has been Mr. L.'s merchant," he knows 
that Laurens "is brought to the verge of real necessity," but 
"that he declines pectmiary assistance, as a man of spirit, under 
his present circumstances. "^ Toward the end of the year, on 
account of the loss of half the indigo he had shipped abroad 
for his support, he found it necessary to consent to receive pay. 
In December he acknowledges the receipt of 20,000 livres and 
says that he is ignorant of the amount of his salary under either 
his old or new commission, but that this is immaterial as he 
intends to accept nothing more, on account of the distress of 
Congress for money. He was not able to realize this desire ; 
in March, 1783, he acknowledges the receipt of 16,666 livres, 
13 sols as a quarter's salary, and in August 7083 livres 7 sols 
for another quarter, and expresses the supposition that Con- 
gress will also pay his expenses home.^ 

^ Franklin's Works, viii., 482-3. 

* Wharton, v., 747. On the use of the word merchant as meaning 
banker, Cf. the following : 

"In England they remember better. These men we call private bankers — 
the RothschUds and Barings and Morgans — are not even now bankers there, 
but ' merchants. ' In reality they are the lineal business descendants of the 
merchants of the great East India Company." — "The Masters of Capital 
in America," by John Moody and Geo. Kibbe Turner, in McClure's Mag., 
xxxvi., 4. 

3 The references to pay are in Wharton, v., 867 ; vi., 139, 304. Laurens's 
letter of March 15, 1783, has £16,666 13s. Whether the editor mistook 
Laurens's 1. (livres) and s. (sols) for pounds and shillings I Jcannot say, as 
I have not seen the manuscript. The letter of June 27th shows that it 
should be Uvres and sols. Laurens's salary as minister to HoUand was 



414 Life of Henry Laurens 

We must return for a moment to Laurens's family, whom, 
except his son, we left at Vigan. During these months Martha 
proved that, despite her "decided preference for Mr. Locke 
and Dr. Witherspoon" and an almost unbelievable learning 
in theology and the classics, joined with a profound piety which 
later partook decidedly of the morbid, she was in one respect 
very much the same as other young women of twenty- two. 
She became the object of the addresses of "a gentleman of 
latitudinarian sentiments," a middle-aged Frenchman named 
De Verne. To her father's anger she "made engagements" 
with "this stranger," as he called him, and defended him as 
"a gentleman whose only fault is that he cannot join house to 
house and lay field to field. "^ 

Ah, mistaken child ! [replied her father.] The ' ' gentleman ' ' has a ' ' fault ' ' 
or a discretion which you wiU not see — ^he has declared that his affections 
are fixed on "houses & fields" acquired by my labor, while he has none to 
add to them, nor does he, nor means he to labor for any. You he would 
make the vehicle for conducting him to the possession of those which he 
supposes are already provided.^ 

Laurens had had enough of dependent relatives in a bank- 
rupt brother-in-law and several unsuccessful nephews and 
nieces, and hotly resented the schemes of this early Etiropean 
seeker after American heiresses. " If she marries the man, " he 
wrote, "she marries the family, numerous and poor; these 
for generations will think themselves married to her family. "^ 
His dying brother refused to give up his faithftd nurse, and the 
girl and her aunt alike represented the impossibility of her 
joining her father. Despite his jealous suspicion that they 
fostered the courtship to keep Martha with them, his pity 

£1500 sterling; as peace commissioner £2500 sterling. Sept. 22, 1784, the 
Clerk of Accounts certified upon Laurens's itemized statement that the 
United States was due him $19,948 89/90 for salary and expenses in 
Europe — the exact amount of his claim. — Laurens MSS. in Lib. of Cong. 

' Martha Laurens to Henry Laurens, Aug. 6, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in 
L. I. Hist. Soc. 

^ Laurens to Martha Laurens enclosed in his letter of Aug. 19, 1782, to 
Henry Laurens, Jr., in ib. 

3 Laurens to Henry Laurens, Jr., Aug. 22, 1782, in ib. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 415 

triumphed nobly. "Take care of my brother," he wrote, 
"let me suffer rather than him." And Martha proved her 
duty by refusing longer to see De Verne, who then in his folly 
sought at the pistol's point to force her aunt to disclose the 
girl's hiding-place. Years afterwards, when Martha was Mrs. 
David Ramsay, her husband and this piratical fortune-hunter 
passed a pleasant evening together without either knowing of 
the other's relation to her. ^ 

It was indeed, as Laurens lamented, a "distressing di- 
lemma;" his brother's life about to be shortened, as he was as- 
sured, by the faithful Martha's leaving him, and the father's own 
shattered health and her own interests demanding her presence 
with him. His health had been almost perfect before the 
autumn of 1 765, except for a rheumatic pain which troubled him 
for upwards of four years preceding that date — the precursor 
probably of the gout which attacked him in 1768 and became 
severe in 1774.^ He entered the Tower ill, and seven months 
after his release he wrote, "fifteen months close confinement 
has shivered one of the best constitutions in the world and 
made me an old man."^ Though not in extreme years, he 
was indeed old and broken. The wreck of his health and the 
tragic loss of his dearest son closed the drama of his life except 
for the last quiet scenes. He wrote to Martha, January 7, 
1783: 

You will consider well how time is passing away, the necessity for my 
return to America, my age, infirmities of body, and the distress of my mind. 
God has been pleased to deprive me of him who had given good earnest to 
rest on him as the prop of my decUning years. My youngest son unprovided 
for in almost every respect; my daughters distant and by various causes 
withheld from me. My brother represented to be in the most deplorable 
situation; my sister consequently involved in grief. My country not only 
demanding, but in opposition to my own inclination at the present time, 
commanding my services. I say contrary to my own inclinations at the 

' The authority for this and the following incidents are, besides the cita- 
tions already specified, Ramsay's Memoirs and Laurens's letters of Dec. 7 
and 30, 1782, and Jan. 7, 1783, and one other whose date I neglected to take. 

=* Laurens to Thompson, April 25, 1766, and to Fisher, Feb. 27, 1766, and 
Dec. 14, 1768, all in Hist. Soc. Penn. 

3 Laurens to Thos. Day, Aug. 10, 1782, in Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



4i6 Life of Henry Laurens 

present time, because I think she might and ought to dispense with them 
and give me a Uttle respite. 

Martha came to him in February. When she reached him 
in London, where he had arrived from Bath in an effort to meet 
her in Paris, she, "like a true American woman, had with her 
maid traveled upward of nine hundred miles alone. "^ She 
became his nurse, and he says, the best clerk he ever had, 
Martha wrote her aunt that her father was suffering terribly 
with gout in his head and side, that he was much worried about 
money matters, is "yellow as a corpse" and was giving direc- 
tions what to do shotdd he die. This very sick man was just 
back from his fourth trip to the continent within a year and 
in less than three weeks was again to repair to Paris at the 
urgent call of Franklin, and after returning to London on public 
business was soon to post off on a last visit to his dying brother 
in southern France and back to England. The wonder is that 
he did not resign his commission along with all other earthly 
concerns in a way Congress could not choose but accept.* 

The chimes of St. Michael's church in Charleston were a 
part of the loot of a British officer in 1782. In the summer of 
the next year, says Laurens, they were offered to him for sale; 
but he scorned to buy what had been stolen. ^ 

* Laurens to Wm. Drayton, Feb. 15, 1783; S. Vaughn to Franklin, Feb. 
3, 1783, in Franklin papers in Am. Philosophical Soc. Ramsay's Memoirs, 
25, is inaccurate in saying that she joined her father in Paris. Hearing of 
her approach, Laurens met her in London about Feb. 10, 1783. Laurens 
later returned to Paris, at which time Martha may have presided over his 
table there, as Dr. Ramsay relates. 

' Trtdy we had an afficted company of ministers. Franklin suffered from 
gout and gravel and Jay had to visit Bath in 1783-4. 

J A London merchant who had resided in South Carolina, naturally not 
so wroth as one to the manor born, bought them and reshipped them to their 
home. They were rung until 1862, when they were shipped to Columbia 
for safety. In the burning of that city by Sherman's army they were 
cracked. Sent to England the next year, they were recast by the same 
formula and in molds made with the same trammels used in making 
them 102 years before. They were first hung in 1764. No difference 
could be distinguished in the tone after the recasting. — McCrady ii., 276, 
n. I. 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 417 

In the spring of 1783 there occurred a quarrel between 
Laurens and Edmund Jenings on which we must waste a 
few moments. Jenings was a quarrelsome, place-hunting 
American who resided during the Revolution in several 
European countries. He greatly impressed John Adams, who 
commended him to the honor of Congress and asked Laurens 
in confidence to get him appointed secretary to the peace com- 
mission.^ Laurens, after being for a while on friendly terms 
with Jenings, became convinced by his suspicious conduct 
and "semi-admissions" that he was the author of anony- 
mous letters seeking to sow dissension among the commis- 
sioners and accordingly withdrew his intimacy and warned his 
colleagues. Jenings thereupon, during Laurens's absence in 
Paris, issued a pamphlet for private circulation on The 
Candor of Henry Laurens, Esq., Manifested by his Behavior to 
Mr. Edmund Jenings. On returning, the gentleman assailed 
issued from Bath, Mr. Laurens's True State of the Case, by 
which his Candor to Mr. Edmund Jenings is Manifested, and 
the Tricks of Mr. Jenings are Detected. As he was informed 
Jenings had sent a quantity of his pamphlets to America, 
Laurens sent forty-two copies of his to protect his reputation 
before "Congress and other citizens.^ Jenings replied in A 
Full Manifestation, and here the matter ended. The spat was 
of little moment. Whether Jenings sought the appointment 
or was first approached by Adams I do not attempt to say. 
Wharton judges that Laurens's proof of his being the author 
of the anonymous notes is strong. Laurens's letters of Jan- 
uary 20, 1783, etc., to Bridgen^ leave no reasonable doubt of 
the fact. Laurens assured Foreign Secretary Livingston, 

I do not esteem it a trifling affair to remove a wicked and mischievous 
favorite from his influence in our councils. 

It is interesting to observe that Jenings, like the slanderers 
against whom Laurens was warned in the anonymous letter of 
November, 1782, was the originator of some of the innuendoes 
which have been repeated long after in quarters which should 

' Wharton, iv., 285, n.; v., 421-2, 662. 

" Wharton, vi., 693-4. ' Laurens MSS. 



41 8 Life of Henry Laurens 

have been more discriminating ; opposite all of which we might 
write, as did Laurens with his own hand in the margin of the 
copy in the Charleston Library, "Totally false. "^ 

Laurens received, January 25, 1783, the permission granted 
April ist to return to America.^ He had been so much bene- 
fited by Bath, the dry pump, etc., that he could speak in 
August of taking a final term there "in hopes of confirming my 
lately recovered health." On the point of engaging passage, 
he received a plea from his dying brother to come to him once 
more. Leaving London about the middle of September and 
visiting Franklin at Passy, after about two and a half months 
in southern France he was back at Bath about the end of the 
year. In the middle of January he left there to embark for 
America, but being taken violently ill, was confined seven 
weeks in London and as soon as able returned for recuperation 
to Bath. James Laurens died about February, 1784, and 
Laurens was delayed by awaiting the arrival of his widow. ^ 

Leaving his sister-in-law, daughters, and granddaughter to 
sail later directly for home while he made his necessary ap- 
pearance before Congress,'' he left London June 6th for Fal- 

' Mr. Laurens gives the following explanation of Mr. Jenings' charge of 
blasphemous use of Scripture: "Mr. Jay, Mr. Laurens and this Mr. 
Jenings were sitting by a fireside in Paris. Mr. Jenings, who is a great 
story teller, was relating a certain unexpected meeting with a female 
acquaintance; he said that the lady appeared Kke an angel, and that at first 
sight he started. Mr. Laurens smiled; Mr. Jenings repeatedly pressed 
him for his thoughts. 'Why,' said he, 'if you will have them, I was 
thinking that I never heard but of one animal before that started at the 
sight of an angel.' " ^ Wharton, vi., 410, 507. 

3 Ramsay's Memoirs of Mrs. Ramsay says Jas. Laurens died in 1784; a 
letter of March 18, 1784, from the Countess of Huntingdon in the Laurens 
MSS. in the S. C. Hist. Soc. consoles Laurens on the loss of his brother. 
Mrs. Jas. Laurens returned to South Carolina with Laurens's daughters 
and died July 8, 1785. 

4S. Hardy to the Governor of Va., Aug. 13, 1784, in Va. State Lib. 
Executive Papers, iii., 604; transcript by Carnegie Institution for Letters 
from Members of the Continental Cong. I have been so particular in 
tracing Laurens's movements in order to show the groundlessness of 
Wharton's innuendo, "... why, after peace, he should have remained 
abroad for three years, are questions as to which in his correspondence 
the same irresoluteness is displayed. " That he was aware of the danger of 



Peace Commissioner, 1782-83 419 

mouth, and after a seven-weeks' passage landed with his son, 
August 3d, in New York, whence he repaired before the end of 
the month to Philadelphia. 

being misjudged under circumstances which forbade a public explanation is 
apparent from his remark in his letter of August 22, 1782, to Henry Laurens, 
Jr. (L. I. Hist. Soc), that Martha's ajffair with De Verne may "cost me a 
winter's journey to Vigan at the hazard of my life & the risque of my reputa- 
tion at home. " I find no other hints of his fearing that anything in his 
stay abroad might injure his good name. Wharton doubtless never saw 
these private letters; but the groundlessness of this slur, like so many of 
his other statements about Laurens, is so plainly exhibited by Laurens's 
letters in the Diplomatic Correspondence that one is tempted to behave 
that Dr. Wharton either passed on the maUcious hints of anonymous 
slanderers without examination or entrusted such editing as the letters 
got to an assistant. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA AFTER THE REVOLUTION, 1 784-92 

AFTER returning from England in the summer of 1784, 
Laurens remained from about the middle of August to 
the middle of November in Pennsylvania, about half the time 
in Philadelphia. His desire was doubtless to report in person 
to Congress, which had adjourned from Annapolis June 3d 
and met again November ist in Trenton. When he faced 
that body he urged upon them the same idea regarding a 
commercial treaty with England which they afterwards sought 
to carry out. 

The experience of nine years without an executive head had 
led with some at this time to a sentiment in favor of transform- 
ing the mere presiding officer of Congress into a more power- 
ful and serviceable official. The position now being vacant, 
there was therefore indecision whether to choose a temporary 
president pending a reform. The rule had been tacitly 
followed of giving the ofhce to each State in succession; but 
the possibility of its being increased in responsibility led now 
to a canvass on the basis of personal ability. Jay, Laurens, 
and Richard Henry Lee were most prominently mentioned. 
The proposed change in the character of the office did not 
occur, but the precedent of passing the position around the 
circle of States was broken by the election of Lee, November 
30th. ^ 

' The following letters are the principal source of the remarks concerning 
the presidency: 

Richard D. Spaight of North Carolina to J. F. Mercer of Virginia, from 
Philadelphia, Nov. 6, 1784, in Roberts Collection, 736, in Haverford College 

420 



Life after the Revolution 421 

Leaving Pennsylvania the 24th of November/ Laurens 
began the long and painful overland journey to Charleston, 
where he arrived with his only surviving son, January 14th, 
1785. His two daughters and widowed sister-in-law and John 
Laurens's little Fanny arrived from London the nth of the 

— transcripts in Carnegie Institution for Letters from Members of the 
Continental Congress: 

"On talking with the gentlemen who have returned from Trenton, I find 
they do not approve of the plan of having a President for the week, they 
wish to have him for the year, with the table as usual, but incline to break 
through the rule which seems to have been tacitly consented to by Congress, 
that is, that each State should have a President before any one should have 
two: After it had gone thro' all the States except four, I think it would be 
treating them with particular indignity to throw them out, unless Congress 
thought it was necessary to place the presidency upon a different footing 
such as the mode you propose or some other which would materially alter 
it. The South Carolinians in case this should take place, are for putting 
Laurens in the chair. I don't know the gentleman, or what his abilities 
are, but this I think, that his conduct during the time he was a prisoner in 
England was not such as to entitle him to the honor of being a second time 
elected President — ^besides if the rule is broke thro' other States have men 
in their delegations whom they would wish to bring forward and with as 
much propriety I am sure as So. Carolina can Mr. Laurens." 

S. Hardy, of Virginia, to Gov. Harrison, from Philadelphia, Nov. 7, 1784, 
in Va. State Lib., Executive Papers, iii., 621 (transcript in Carnegie Inst, 
as above) : Am just going to Congress at Trenton ; "Conjectures are various 
who will be appointed President — Mr. Jay — Mr. Laurens, and Mr. Lee 
I hear are all mentioned." 

Monroe to Madison, Trenton, Nov. 15, 1784, in Madison Papers in Lib. 
of Cong, (transcript in Carnegie Inst, as above) : 

"We know not whom we shall have for Presidt. of Congress. The dele- 
gates of S. Carolina think of Mr. Laurens but if I may venture a conjecture 
from what I have observed, with respect to Mr. Laurens's intentions I 
shod, suppose his object was to attain the appointmt. to the Court of G. 
Britain; the rule heretofore adopted in the election of President will I 
think be deviated from; If this shod, be the case it is not improbable Rich. 
H. Lee may be elected." 

It is unnecessary to say that Monroe was mistaken in thinking that 
Laurens wanted any appointment whatever. He perhaps came to that 
opinion because of Laurens's talking, as another Congressman informs us, 
of the favorable disposition of the English King and ministers toward 
making a commercial treaty. 

' Laurens's letter of May 31, 1786. 



422 Life of Henry Laurens 

following May.* Aged with hardships, illness and sorrow, 
the battered old patriot was at last free to gather around him 
after so many j'-ears of separation the fragments of his broken 
family, which had been scattered over two continents for 
thirteen years. Although he answered every attempt of his 
State to force honors upon him by steadily refusing to be 
drawn from his retirement, he was not a conquered or embit- 
tered man. His last years were calm and strong; he was the 
peaceful, kindly, seasoned veteran, the enlightened planter, 
the humane master, the steady friend. 

The esteem of his fellow-citizens was indicated by their 
electing him to the " Jacksonborough " Legislature and to 
Congress and again to the State Legislature, and in 1787 to 
the Federal Convention.* But he was disgusted with public 
life and glad to be out of it.^ As if the testimonials directly 
to the father were not enough, his son who had not been in the 
State since he left it as a child of eight years, was elected to the 
Legislature immediately upon his return as a youth of twenty- 
one, and was again elected in 1787 though not a candidate, but 
did not serve. The same year that Laurens returned home 
the seven huge judicial districts of the State were being divided 
into the counties which have ever since formed the basis of 
its administration, and one of them was in his honor given 
his name.'' 

» Letter of June 2, 1786, and Gazette of the State of S. C, Dec. 16, 1784, 
and Jan. 17, 1785; S. C. Hist. Mag., ii., 269, n. i, quoting S. C. Gazette 
and Public Advertiser of May 14, 1785. Misses Martha and Eleanor were 
called by their nicknames Patty and Polly even by the newspaper. 
Martha was also called Patsy. 

' S. C. Gazette, March 27, and Dec. 6, 1784; Charleston Morning Post 
and Daily Advertiser, March 10, 1787. 

3 Letter of April 14, 1786. 

* As it is sometimes said that Laurens coimty was named for Col. John 
Laurens, I give the following: Dr. John A. Barksdale, of Laurens county, 
was the son of Allen Barksdale, who lived from 1783 to 1870, and his wife 
Nancy Downs, who lived from 1787 to 1866. Nancy Downs was a niece 
of Major Jonathan Downs of the Revolution, who died about 1818. For 
this information and that which follows I am indebted to C. D. Barksdale, 
Esq., of Laurens, son of Dr. John A. Barksdale. An editorial in the 
Laurensville Herald of March 15, 1907, quotes Dr. Barksdale as follows: 



Life after the Revolution 423 

Laurens retired to Mepkin, his plantation thirty miles up 
the Cooper, and spent his remaining years as a kindly, pro- 
gressive planter. From October to June inclusive the family 
lived upon this delightful bluff amid a beautiful park overlook- 
ing the river. To the city house the girls about the end of 
June, "for fashion sake go to town." His old enemy the 
gout visited him from time to time, and he usually felt unable 
to travel except to Charleston and back by water. It was a 
sufficient task gathering the loose ends from his many years' 
absence, to say nothing of the depredations wrought by the 
British. The city house was well-nigh a wreck, and at Mepkin 
the enemy had destroyed his residence along with many of 
his houses, books, and papers.^ 

" Dr. Barksdale further stated that Jonathan Downs — a blood relation 
of the Doctor's — ^was one of the commissioners appointed soon after the close 
of the American Revolution to lay off and name the several subdivisions of 
the State, then called Districts; that in the course of the procedure in the 
convention, when it came to name this County, some member of the Com- 
mission moved that it be called Downs District, in honor of Jonathan 
Downs. To this Mr. Downs objected, and moved to amend by offering 
as a substitute the name of Laurens, in honor of Henry Laurens — and it 
was so done." 

This quotation manifests some confusion regarding Legislature, Con- 
vention, and Commission. The counties were named by the Legislature, 
not by any convention. Also notice the common error of supposing that 
the counties were at first called districts, as they were in fact only from 1798 
to 1868. Major Downs was not named by the act as one of the commis- 
sioners to lay off the counties, though it is not impossible that he may have 
been later appointed by cooptation to fill a vacancy. His suggestions were 
probably made in the Legislature. 

An article by Dr. Barksdale himself in the Charleston News and Courier 
to the same effect as the editorial, his son writes me, has been misplaced. 
Mills' Statistics of South Carolina, published in 1826, says, p. 604, that 
the county was named for Henry Laurens. 

' For details of the damage to the city place, see Chapter V., p. 62, n. 4. 
The authority quoted there, Laurens's servant James Custer, wrote him 
June 13, 1780, that the British "markt the one haffe of your haulBurow 
glass," and at Santee "they have takeing all of your horses and the filler- 
delphy Black Stallion & the yotmg Stallion," The only consolation was 
that Laurens's negroes did not foUow the British so largely as others nor did 
his plantations suffer so severely. All this the faithful Custer addressed : 



424 Life of Henry Laurens 

He had previously lived in the city, but for the rest of his 
life Mepkin was his home. Here he occupied an overseer's 
cottage until he could replace the burned plantation house with 
a fine nine-room residence, for which he ordered from Phila- 
delphia marble slabs, chimney backs, and lightning rods, and 
from London hardware, paint, glass, and wall paper, "none 
gaudy or glaring."^ I will soon have a chamber, he wrote 
an English friend, "the Duke of Richmond would upon a pinch 
be glad to lie in. " He lived in the country not only from pre- 
ference; the war had cost him about forty thousand pounds; 
cash was scarce except when a new flood of paper belched forth ; 
Mepkin furnished well-nigh everything he needed, and he had 
no money for the city market.^ He cast the seed upon his 
still fertile acres and opened up his own commerce direct with 
England and to some extent with France on a sterling money 
basis, and in general manifested the same sleepless attention, 
unresting pursuit of the matter in hand, and genius for order 
and detail in recouping his fortunes which had served to build 
them. "A ship of 300 tons," he wrote, "may load at my 
wharf and proceed safely to sea. " How his skill raised Mep- 
kin above the level of its neighbors is described in December, 
1785, in the diary of an alert observer, Timothy Ford: 

Within sight of Washington [plantation] is the seat & plantation of his 
excellency Henry Laurens, agreeable prospect of which induced us to visit 
it today (Thursday) Contrary to our expectations he had gone to Town we 
were not however disappointed of viewing the place which displays the 
beauties & advantages of nature no less than the ingenious improvements of 
its owner. He is a rare instance of method, whereby his plantation raises 
itself above those of this country in which every thing is done immethodi- 
caUy by the round about means of force & labour. One may here & there 
be found who rising above the prejudices & shaking off the Supine Careless- 
ness of the country ventures into the use of machinery & the contrivances 
of art; and what makes it Still more Surprising that they are not imitated 

"My hounerable MaSter I Send youhearafewUnes in hopes they may find 
you in as good State of helth as the times Sir will admit of as for our Selves 
Master here are but indifferen as the times are but Indifferent." — ^Laurens 
MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

» Letters of May 19, 1786, July 13, 1787, etc. 

' Letters of Feb. 18, 1783, Dec. 12, 1785, Sept. 10, 1785, Feb. 13, 1786, 
and April 20, 1786. 



Life after the Revolution 425 

more is that they are generally very Successful and find their account in 
such undertakings.^ 

Laurens tells us that his efforts to reward "and make the 
whole happy" were at least partly in recognition of the fidelity 
of his slaves during his long absence and the temptations to 
run away which the war had afforded. He provided his 
plantations with various labor-saving devices, sometimes at 
great expense, to spare them excess of hard labor. ^ "But 
these improvements are the pleasure of my life, more particu- 
larly as they contribute to bring my poor blacks to a level with 
the happiest peasants to be found in Europe. " He imported 
the first seed of the tallow tree, and during his residence 
abroad sought to secure additions to the one Barbary sheep 
which he had, investigated the raising of silkworms, the method 
of making cider and wine in Orleans, the selection of good 
pasture grasses, the culture des Meuriers, the manufacture 
of tallow candles, scaring crows, ctdtivating oil beans and 
extracting the oil, the cure of tropical and venereal diseases, 
and the raising of "Mangold Wurzel, or Root of Scarcity," 
a vegetable then coming into use with leaves like spinach and 
roots and stalks like asparagus. ^ 

His large Georgia estates had to be recovered from some 
sort of public seizure. In 1787 he offered all his property in 
that State for sale in England on the following terms : 

1. Broughton Island place, 1500 acres, 

2. New Hope 

3. 1000 acres near New Hope 
4., Tract on Turtle River, and one or two town lots, 

£8000 

I MS. Diary of Timothy Ford, 1785-87. This passage, which appears to 
be for December, 1785, was called to my attention by Miss Mabel L. 
Webber, Secretary of the S. C. Hist. Society. The diary is now (July, 1912) 
being published in the S. C. Hist. Mag. Ford was from Morristown, New 
Jersey, and moved to South CaroHna in 1785. He became a prominent 
lawyer and a leader in the low country party against the attempt of the up 
country to secure reform of representation in the Legislature 1 790-1 808, 
being one of the chief newspaper protagonists under the pseudonym 
"Constitutionalist. " = Letters of Aug. 23, 1785, Feb. 13, 1786, etc. 

3 Miscellaneous Laurens MSS. in the Lib. of Cong.; Wharton, vi., 109, 
quoting John Adams's Diary for Dec. 5, 1782, on the sheep. 



at 


£2500 


at 


3500 


at 


500 


at 


1500 



426 Life of Henry Laurens 

All in one sale for £6000 sterling. 

The sale was not effected and the Georgia property passed 
to his heirs. ^ 

Of Laurens's losses on account of the war, part was due to 
outright theft by the enemy. He speaks of the plunder of 
his estates lying in the British treasury, and says that he has a 
claim of almost £2800 acknowledged by two administrations 
to be just, but unpaid lest its payment should encourage similar 
claims*; and, though he declared that all private debts on 
both sides ought to be paid, he naturally considered it unfair 
for England to steal £1000 worth of a man's negroes and burn 
his bams and then expect him to pay his £1000 debt to a 
British merchant. So far as he was concerned personally, he 
still held unpaid claims against old English correspondents 

'As late as 181 1, due to hurricanes, broken contracts, and confused 
foreign relations, this formerly princely domain, two plantations alone of 
which when the war came on had bid fair soon to be yielding "at least ten 
thousand guineas clear per annum, " "produces nothing but annual taxes. " 
— Ramsay's Memoirs, 54-5. 

The substance of Laurens's will, disposing of about 20,000 acres, is as 
follows: 

To his daughter Mrs. Martha Ramsay: The lot opposite the west front 
of the Exchange in Charleston, corner of Broad Street; 2000 acres near 
Brunswick, Ga.; one or two town lots in Brunswick; 2000 acres between 
Turtle river and New Hope on the Altamaha; 3000 acres, being the New 
Hope plantation on the west side of the Altamaha, opposite Broughton 
Island; also Broughton Island; all which with added cash he estimated 
worth £10,000 sterling. 

To his daughter Mrs. Eleanor Pinckney, 2000 acres called Wright's 
Savannah; 3000 acres, the Mt. Tacitus place on San tee river; with added 
cash to be equal to £10,000 sterling. 

To John Laurens's only child, his granddaughter Frances Eleanor Laurens, 
6000 acres at Ninety-Six and certain lots in the suburb of Charleston called 
Hampstead; with added money estimated to equal £4250 sterling. 

To the widow of Mr. Futerell of the Tower of London, £100, and to her 
daughter £50. (This Miss Futerell acted as a companion in the family of 
Mrs. Martha Ramsay. — Memoirs, 289, etc.) 

After disposing of several small legacies, he made his only surviving son 
residuary legatee, his share including the home place at Mepkin. He says 
that he firmly believed the properties to be worth at least twice the figures 
at which he placed them. 

^ Letters of Feb. 13, 1786, and Jan. 9, 1787. 



Life after the Revolution 427 

for such sums as £2000 and £3500. His own government, as 
well as that of the enemy, proved to him a heavy source of 
loss. The following sequence of events supplies an interesting 
item in American financial history: 

I am content; my lands will maintain me and I am free from debt. Yet 
I met with a circumstance yesterday which would hurt the tranquillity of 
many a man. Mr. Owen adjusted an account for me with the treasury, 
the amount of which on my part was equal to four thousand two or three 
hundred solid guineas, for which I am allowed as much paper as would 
yield me about two hundred and fifty. The treasurers determined accord- 
ing to a general rule and will make no exception in favor of Mr. Laurens. 
How severely must similar adjustments be felt by men who are in debt, by 
widows or orphans. The rule appears to me unjust and iniquitous; but 
I must not add the loss of happiness to that of money. ' 

The United States Government was also his debtor, to his 
sorrow. June 17, 1786, he wrote that he had "a good deal 
more than £2000 sterling" invested in United States loan 
office certificates and State indents; and he regrets that his 
brother's estate "is almost wholly involved in that sort of 
trumpery. " ^ As late as 1 792 he was still seeking payment from 
Congress for ten thousand bushels of rice furnished Continental 
troops in 1777. A brighter day came with the new Constitu- 
tion and Alexander Hamilton. March 13,1 792 , Laurens wrote 

' Laurens to Wm. Bell, June 3, 1785. Joseph Kershaw to Laurens, 
May 15, 1786, says he (Kershaw) suffered £15,000 sterling by the British 
army and bids fair to suffer almost half as much by the American. 

' Laurens's conduct in regard to his brother's will was very magnanimous 
as also were his proceedings in settling the estate. The will was sent to him 
at Calais by his brother from Vigan. James, intending to make Henry's 
children his principal heirs after his widow, named them as residuary lega- 
tees. Henry, knowing the changed condition of affairs in the United States, 
saw that the wiU as it stood would reduce his children's share to something 
very smaU; yet he refrained from suggesting any change and returned it 
to his brother with the remark, "Every man's wUl ought to be his own. " 
James's partners had, without his knowledge, involved him in a large debt 
in England. The estate was greatly reduced by the war and in fact equaled 
only about two-fifths of the debts. (Laurens to RoUeston, Dec. 12, 1785.) 
How far the redemption of the pubUc credit after the establishment of the 
Federal Constitution benefited the heirs I cannot say, but that it had some 
effect is evident from Laurens's letter of March 13, 1792, to William Bell, 
quoted below. 



428 Life of Henry Laurens 

his agent Bell that he had $56,854-15 of three per cent, and 
six per cent, "loan office receipts or certificates," $45,281.98 
of it on account of his brother's estate; that he is offered 
eighteen shillings in the pound, but hears that he can get pound 
for pound in Philadelphia or New York; please attend to it. — 
Very different news from the 250 guineas worth of paper re- 
ceived for 4200 giiineas of gold of which he wrote Mr. Bell 
seven years before. Incidents like these help to explain what 
classes labored for the new Constitution and the changes in 
the business world which followed their success. 

Laurens's letters givea vivid picture, not only of the deranged 
finances, but also of the crippled agriculture and shattered 
business of the years following the Revolution. The unscru- 
pulous and quick-witted had their heydey ; to the honest rou- 
tine man it was a sorrowful time. Yet many lived happily, 
though deeply in debt, hoping for means of parrying payment 
till better days or waiting for death to wipe out their obliga- 
tions. Credit was already dead.^ The very best men were 
failing in their payments in 1786. Stay laws^ protected the 
debtor, who, rejoicing in this immunity, often lived in extrava- 
gant luxury and sported and speculated on the money of his 
defrauded creditor, who was pinched with want.^ Laurens 
wrote, April 14, 1786, that he was frequently reduced to less 
than a dollar in cash. As he always made it a point to belong 
to the creditor class and was not willing to become rich by 
buying on time and paying later in depreciated paper, he 
suffered heavily from the affliction common at that period of 
his debtors "pursuing (him) in triumph and paying (him) 
without mercy.""* But the following picture of almost abso- 
lute starvation in a letter of Laurens to Edward Rutledge is 

' Letter from Laurens, Jan. 9, 1786. 

^ Stay laws of 1782, 1783, and 1784 suspended suits for debts antedating 
Feb. 26, 1782, untn 1786, when one-fourth of the amount became suable. 
— Stat, at Large, iv., 513, 640, and vi., 628. 

3 Laurens's letter of 1787. Cj. a remarkable article by a woman in very 
vigorous English and displaying a rare knowledge of economics in the 
Charleston Morning Post and Daily Advertiser of April 11, 1786. 

4 Witherspoon's phrase quoted by McMaster in American Historical 
Review, xi., 522. Laurens to F. Bremar, Aug. 15, 1783. 



Life after the Revolution 429 

more pathetic and helps us to understand the stay laws and 
paper-money craze :^ 

Your overseer has applied to me for a hundred bushels of corn to feed 
your negroes. I doubted my ability to spare it. " The poor man exclaimed , 
'The negroes won't have a bite after next Sunday.' " "This affecting stroke 
moved me " to run my own stock low and scrape together a hundred bushels 
of corn, peas and rough rice from my Mt. Tacitus plantation to supply your 
negroes for the rest of the season. The overseer "retired with joy. " 

If Edward Rutledge's negroes were in danger of starvation, 
we may imagine the hardships which the poor, white and black 
alike, suffered in the track of the British devastation and the 
industrial and commercial paralysis which followed. Laurens 
supplied food to others besides Rutledge, sometimes at his 
own serious inconvenience. But the human spirit is very 
elastic and soon forgets hard knocks in hearty sport. About 
this same time Laurens alludes to a great horse race attended 
by people from all over the State; but there was not much 
money there, for all his efforts to have a nice horse sold for a 
friend were unavailing. Business and agriculture, struggling 
to regain their feet, were beaten down by act after act of the 
Legislature destroying the obligation of contracts, making 
honest industry a hardship and repudiation the sure road to 
wealth. Not only domestic but foreign trade was gleefully 
hamstrimg. Says Laurens, writing January 6, 1787: 

An infamous law enacted by the late House of Assembly, committed at 
the same time a violent infraction of the treaty of peace and every principle 
of justice, working the destruction of creditors on both sides of the water, 
aggrandizing too many who ride in coaches, make gainful speculations 
with the money which ought to be appUed to the discharge of their debts, 
and sneer at their suffering creditors. From the time of my arrival here to 
the present moment, I have not received a single farthing, either principal 
or interest of bonds due to my brother's estate or myself.^ 

' Laurens to Edward Rutledge, May 24, 1786. The quotation is con- 
densed except where the quotation marks show it to be literal. 

2 Cf. the presentment of the grand jury of Ninety-Six district. South 
Carolina, in December, 1788, declaring "that many acts of the legislature 
screening the debtor from the just demand of his fair and bona fide creditor 
have had a very pernicious influence on the morals and manners of the 
people. " Quoted by McMaster in Amer. Hist. Rev., xi., 522. 



430 Life of Henry Laurens 

And again, two days later, he wishes that credit was abol- 
ished for three or four years so we might "get out of debt and 
become honest again." "Reason is too feeble for stemming 
the torrent." "I can lend, however, no assistance to the 
reform; the time is over with me. " To the many merchants 
who applied to him for recommendations to European houses, 
his answer was uniformly : 

I will encourage no house in Europe to give credit to men in any one 
of these States until there shall be an act of Assembly in the State from 
which the application is made for obliging debtors to fulfil their engagements 
with their creditors beyond sea. 

The complications concerning commerce and unfulfilled 
treaties roused his apprehensions of foreign war, and he pre- 
dicted that only some new calamity would bring the country to 
its senses. ^ But despite all this he never lost faith in the future. 
The sickness of the State he regarded as temporary as it was 
inevitable, and prophesied with a statesman's outlook that 
sound health would follow these bitter experiences : 

Our nation is in a state of infancy, and sorry I am to repeat, that from the 
moment peace was announced, our citizens throughout the Union have acted 
like infants in politics and prodigals in life and manners. The evil, I know, 
will purge itself; but we shall receive, and have already received, many a 
woeful pang in the operation. You know my sentiments fully on these 
subjects. All the West India ports would not have been shut against us 
had we asked with sagacity in the beginning. * 

Amid the wreckage of business and politics, Laurens was 
still blessed with an affectionate family life. January 23,1787, 
his remarkable eldest daughter Martha, aged twenty-seven, 
became the third wife of that remarkable man to whom as 
statesman, citizen, and historian South Carolina owes so much, 
Dr. David Ramsay.* ''Polly is too young, the answer given 
to a late attack " on the heart of sixteen-year-old Mary Eleanor. 
Nevertheless the young people had their way, and April 27, 
1788, the day she was eighteen, she became the wife of Charles 
Pinckney, who was the founder of the Democratic party in 

^ Laurens to Joseph Kershaw, June 17, 1786. 

' Laurens to William BeU, July i, 1785. 3 Johnson's Traditions, 326. 



Life after the Revolution 431 

South Carolina, four times Governor of the State, and one of the 
most influential men in the formation of the Constitution of 
the United States. Four years later she died as her mother had 
died with her, with a child twelve days old, who became Henry 
Laurens Pinckney, the founder (1819), editor and owner of the 
Charleston Mercury and a distinguished politician and man 
of letters. One of her two daughters became the wife of Robert 
Y. Hayne. ^ John Laurens's little daughter "Fanny is truly 
a very good child," improving in books, manners and needle- 
work. May 26, 1792, Laurens's only surviving son, Henry, 
married Eliza, daughter of his old friend John Rutledge. 
"Henry of the Tower," as he is distinguished in family par- 
lance from others of the name, was much pleased with his 
new daughter. Family tradition has it that, regarding Henry, 
junior, as now the head of the family, he resigned the mansion 
at Mepkin to the young couple and built himself a cottage 
about a hundred yards away. Whether he really manifested 
the delicate sensibility regarding the in-law relation which this 
story implies, or whether the cottage was in any event the 
one he already had from the days succeeding the Revolution 
before rebuilding his burnt mansion, the old man closed his 
days as he might have wished. Though he and John Rutledge 
had failed to establish the college they strove for in 1770, his 
son was happily married to that friend's daughter, and his two 
daughters were married to two of the original board of trustees 
of the college when it was finally founded in 1785. 

^ " Col. Miles Brewton and Some of his Descendants," by A. S. Salley, Jr., 
in S. C. Hist. Mag., ii., 145, for date of Eleanor's marriage; cyclopedias, 
Jervey's Hayne, 48, etc., for other data. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 

IN looking back over Laurens's career I am impressed that 
the political circumstances of his period never admitted 
of his displaying his talents in their most appropriate sphere. 
The political organization of the times threw him into legisla- 
tion and diplomacy, except during his service as head of the 
executive branch of South Carolina during the few months 
during which that was in the hands of the Council of Safety, 
Success as a great merchant and as the administrator of many 
widely separated plantations, ranging in their development 
from the crude forest and swamp to the highest stage of culti- 
vation, indicate that his talent lay mainly in administrative 
and executive lines. The traits of his character bear the same 
testimony. Quick of perception and impatient with inefficiency, 
bungling, ignorance or stupidity, his mind moved straight to 
the mark of his own well-defined purpose. Though courteous 
and easy in his bearing, the clear-cut, concise, and positive 
ring of his discourse revealed the man who had been accus- 
tomed to give orders and see things accomplished. 

The following story handed down in the family indicates 
what kind of house he kept: Calling the butler one day, he 
pointed to a small grease spot on the floor and without a word 
awaited an explanation. The old negro said in confusion, 
"I reckon it mus' be grease, massa. " Mr. Laurens replied, 
" I do not recognize it, " and passed on. The butler called his 
son whom he had in training, and assuming the recent manner 
of his master, pointed to the spot with the words, "Two 
minutes ! " As soon as the task was done (and we may be sure 

432 



Opinions and Character 433 

it was accomplished in the allotted time) , the sounds from the 
stable left no doubt that the young butler-to-be was receiving 
a lesson from his trainer calculated to prevent their master's 
finding any more spots which he did not recognize. 

Laurens had a keen feeling for beauty in nature and litera- 
ture, though his trend was not specially towards the aesthetic. 
His garden was one of his greatest delights. In narrating 
his bivouacs in the beginning of the Revolution he speaks of 
' ' having lodged not above three nights in full view of the most 
beautiful ceiling in the universe. "^ 

The walls of his library are set with bookcases, still per- 
fectly preserved and m.arked with dignity and beauty of design. 
Now that the property is owned and rented out by a railroad 
company they should be transferred to some historic building 
for preservation. He read considerably and very thoroughly 
in English, but had no classical education and does not appear 
to have mastered any foreign language. Biography, history, 
and travel were his favorites. 

He used to observe [says David Ramsay, his son-in-law,] that many 
passages of admired authors were borrowed either in matter or manner from 
sacred writ, and in support of this opinion quoted among other examples, 
"God tempers the wind to the back of the shorn lamb" of Sterne, as an 
imitation of "he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind " of the 
prophet Isaiah; and the interesting "lovely young Lavinia" of Thomson 
as a portrait of the bible Ruth by a modern hand, with a little alteration 
in the drapery.* 

After quoting a passage from Leigh's pamphlet in their 
Court of Vice Admiralty dispute, Laurens shows us something 
of his scholarship by saying: 

I have seen a much cleaner and more grammatical translation of this 
passage from Polignac — (which, together with many more borrowed 
Flowers our learned Author would impose upon his readers for fruit of his 
own genius) — done by a School Boy of fourteen Years old.^ 

He tells us in the same connection that he does not under- 

' Laurens to John Laurens, April 8, 1775. 
* Ramsay's South Carolina, ii., 485. 

3 Appendix to Extracts, etc., 2, note. An early example of Macaulay's 
precocious "school boy." 
28 



434 Life of Henry Laurens 

stand Greek, and "is not an adept in the dead Languages," 
and in reply to a quotation by John Adams he had to reply that 
he was a poor Latinist. Among his highly esteemed books 
was Gibbon's Rome. In 1767 he lent the following to an over- 
seer: Anson's Voyage, Charles XII., Rebellion of 1745, Law of 
Consideration, Quincy's Sermons, History of the Pilgrim — truly 
a most excellent bill of fare for a serious-minded man and to 
me quite suggestive of what character of works filled the 
shelves behind those quaint glass doors in his library. 

Laurens's own writings are confined to his public corre- 
spondence, a few newspaper articles or pamphlets, the "Nar- 
rative" of his imprisonment in the Tower, and his thousands 
of private letters, some quite long, in which he is at his best. 
His mind worked with the precision of a machine. Concise 
as Calhoun, but without his preternatural solemnity, his 
letters are lucid, clear-cut, finished, direct, and unambiguous, 
and best of all, instinct with life. It is surprising to find from 
a number of his hasty originals that such an easy writer some- 
times crossed out and rewrote. The less conscious he was of 
writing for the public, the better and more natural was his style. 
His rapidly moving, forceful sentences throb with nervous 
energy and sparkle with striking and illuminating phrases. 
For instance : 

The particular instance which I allude to cost these States a large sum of 
money without putting the criminal to the expense of a blush.' 

That Mischief-Monger whose meat and drink it hath long been to 
separate Friends.^ 

There is a certain versatihty habitual if not almost constitutional in men 
born south of 38 degs (sic) of latitude in these States. ^ 

To a young man in jail for debt he wrote, August 30, 1766'' : 

How many young men of abilities far inferior to those which you possess 
have by an industrious application to business & shunning those paths 

'Laurens to Washington, Nov. 20, 1778, in speaking of members of 
Congress or ex-members of Congress getting rich by information and votes 
in Congress. * Private letter. 

3 Laurens to Washington, May 5, 1778, in MS. letters to Washington in 
Lib. Cong. The use of "versatility" as meaning fickleness or changeable- 
ness is common in Laurens's letters. < Hist. Soc. of Penn. MSS. 



opinions and Character 435 

which the wise man tells us "are the ways to hell & leadeth down to the 
Chambers of Death, " how many such young men I say have passed by you, 
& from a state of nothingness arrived at opulence & credit, leaving tm- 
happy you in a state somewhat worse than nothing. 

... & you wiU in time heal a broken character & wipe ofE the many 
spots that you have hereunto most industriously employed yourself in 
fixing on your reputation. 

He sometimes reveals a dash of acid in his keen wit in 
pricking the bubbles of pomposity or pretense, and in con- 
troversy he wielded a rapier with a strong, quick thrust. In 
middle life he sometimes hurled at an opponent coarse epithets 
mingled with a quite broad humor. Anyone who lost his 
temper put himself at his mercy — an advantage, however, 
which Laurens improved the more effectively by going only 
so far as justice, though sometimes stern justice, warranted. 
Though he never "kicked a man when he was down," he was 
accustomed very plainly to make him understand how he came 
to be down and just how badly down he was.^ Possessed of 
strong emotions, kept, however, under firm control, when 
roused by indignation against unfaithful public servants or by 
bursts of family affection, he rises into the realm of literature. 
Professor Tyler speaks of his "Narrative," which is by no 
means his best production, as 

a piece of writing having such worth and charm as to entitle it to far 
greater fame than it has yet had, . . . and told with simplicity, spright- 
liness, and grace, also with a sureness of intellectual movement born of 
the splendid sincerity, virility, wholesomeness, and competence of this 
man — himself the noblest Roman of them all — the unsurpassed embodi- 
ment of the proudest, finest, wittiest, most efficient, and most chivalrous 
Americanism of his time. ^ 

Laurens's kindness was one of his chief virtues, and he 
frequently throughout his life went to trouble and expense in 
aiding or defending the unfortunate, even though they had no 
special claim upon him. His humanity showed brightest imder 
that greatest strain upon our social, religious, and political 

^ E. g., two letters of Laurens to Braund and Kaltieson, Aug. 7, 1766, in 
Hist. Soc. Penn. MSS. 

" Literary Hist, of the American Revolution, ii., 242-3. 



436 Life of Henry Laurens 

virtue, the negro. His directions as a money-getting man of 
forty-five to give flannel clothes and blankets where they were 
needed and to "be kind to Berom under his affliction," and 
his statement in the retirement of old age that the happiness of 
his slaves was his delight, are of a piece with his whole system . 
He had his negroes instructed in religion. The scene, de- 
scribed in a letter to his son, which occurred on the night of 
his arrival after a three years' absence from home, could not 
have occurred except with a genuinely kind man. He writes^ : 

I found nobody there but three of our old domestics — Stepny, Exeter and 
big Hagar. Those drew tears from me by their hvunble and affectionate 
salutes and congrattilations. My knees were clasped, my hands kissed, 
my very feet embraced, and nothing less than a very — I can't say fair, but 
full — ^buss of my lips would satisfy the old man weeping and sobbing in my 
face. The kindest inquiries over and over again were made concerning 
Master Jacky, Master Harry, Master Jemmy. They. . . held my hands, 
hung upon me; I could scarce get from them. "Ah," said the old man; 
"I never thought to see you again; now I am happy; Ah, I never thought 
to see you again, " 

When inoculation was being introduced in South Carolina, 
Laurens proposed to a slave that he should submit to it, on 
condition that if he died his children should all be free. The 
negro submitted; his life was the forfeit, and his children 
received their dear bought liberty, — a pathetic title to a noble 
ancestry. 

In his private life Laurens displayed the characteristic 
virtues of his Huguenot blood, as, e. g., the firmly knit family 
ties and the strong authority of the parent. Though he was 
but forty-six years old at the death of his wife, he refrained, 
at a period when there was little delicacy even as to a decent 
time of waiting, from a second marriage rather than jeopar- 
dize the happy relations with his children, and for many 
months his spirit remained under the terrible shadow of his 
loss.^ He was a kind and careful father, deeply attached to 

' Laurens to John Laurens, December, 1774, in S. C. Htst. Mag., iv., 
265. 

* Laurens's father took a second wife in three months and in so doing 
was not very pecuhar among his contemporaries. George Washington's 



Opinions and Character 437 

his children and enjoying with them an intimate friendship 
which is one of the most beautiful flowers of parenthood. 
Hear him as, turning from his duties as head of the Revolution- 
ary government in South Carolina in the summer of I775> he 
writes to his children in Europe : 

My garden looks as charmingly as a garden can look without its proper 
guests; I have indeed vast increase of mocking birds. Grapes plentiful; 
peaches ripe sooner, and nectarines better, than common and very fine; 
figs, damsons and plumbs in abundance; old Stepny always sober, and 
daily refreshing showers ; but alas ! what are these without my best friends — 
without my sons and my daughters? 

Nothing could be more beautiful than the mutual confidence 
between himself and John, his eldest son. Shortly after 
hearing of his death, he wrote, December 30, 1782, to his 
sister-in-law : 

My dear son was far oflE ; he is placed at a little further distance from me. 
. . . He, dutiful son, affectionate friend, sensible, honest councillor, 
would have fled across the globe to conduct and serve his father. I was 
striving to go to him. He loved his country; he bled and died for it. 
I shall soon quit this globe and meet him beyond it, happy nevermore to 
separate. 

But he was not one whit less positive as to the respect and 
obedience due him. It was this same father who, in writing to 
his brother James in the summer of 1775 to dissuade John 
from forsaking his studies and joining the army, said that if 
he insists on disobeying, 

I shall give him up for lost and he wiU very soon reproach himself for his 
want of duty. ... If these reflections prevail not over him, nothing 
will — ^he must have his own way and I must be content with the reflection, 
that I had a son. 

John waited until permission was given, though almost 
twenty-two years old, and so this fearful threat was not put 
to the test.^ It was the system under which the father had 

brother Samuel before he was forty-seven had been the husband of five 
wives. Remarriage by widows also seems to have been extremely common. 
' On the details of this sometimes misstated incident, see Appendix, 
on the Life of Lt. Col. John Laurens, pp. 470-71. 



438 Life of Henry Laurens 

been reared and under which his own father had excluded from 
his home a married daughter who defied his will. But the 
world could never forgive a father who refused his forgiveness 
to such a son for such a disobedience. 

We recall Laurens's ideas on education. His taste in this 
was the same as in wall paper, "none gaudy or glaring." He 
writes, February 3, 1777, to John: 

Give me the daughter and you the sister "possessed in an eminent degree 
of qualities which will render her valuable in society and fit her for her duty 
in all the relationships of Hfe," although not eminent in that "grace of de- 
portment which gives splendor to every action," in preference to a simper- 
ing toy.^ 

The daughters were educated after this fashion. Martha 
was accustomed to read the New Testament in Greek with her 
sons and in French with her daughters. Laurens, partial 
perhaps to his baby, speaks of Eleanor when a girl as his 
brightest child; but her early death at the age of twenty-four 
prevented the fidl manifestation of her powers. 

On Laurens's religious character we are fortunate in having, 
in addition to his own words, the testimony of his son-in-law, 
Dr. Ramsay: 

In the performance of his religious duties Mr. Laurens was strict and 
exemplary. The emergency was great which kept him from church either 
forenoon or afternoon, and very great indeed which kept him from his 
regular monthly communion. With the bible he was intimately acquainted. 
Its doctrines he firmly believed, its precepts and history he admired, and 
was much in the habit of quoting and applying portions of it to present 
occurrences. He not only read the scriptures diligently to his family, but 
made aU his children read them also. His family bible contained in his 
own hand-writing several of his rernarks on passing providences." 

^ Compare the view of the Laurens men of a " fine lady " with the Laurens 
women's view of a "fine gentleman" as expressed by Martha Laurens 
Ramsay in writing to her son: 

"Of all the mean objects in creation a lazy, poor, proud gentleman es- 
pecially if he is a dressy fellow, is the meanest; and yet this is generally 
the character of yoimg men of good family, and slender forttmes, unless 
they take an early turn to learning and science." — Ramsay's Memoirs, 301. 

' History of South Carolina, ii., 485. 



opinions and Character 439 

The simplicity which marked his character appeared here 
too. "My religion, my dear daughter," he wrote, "is not 
ostentatious, nor more conspicuous in externals than is 
consistent with the precepts of our great Master. "^ 

Thrifty, practical man that he was, he found the Book of 
Proverbs a favorite. ' ' Your grandfather Laurens used to say," 
his daughter Martha wrote to her son in college, "if men made 
good use of only the book of Proverbs, there would be no 
bankruptcies, no failures in trade ; no family dissentions ; 
none of those wide spreading evils which, from the careless 
conduct of men in the common concerns of life, desolate 
human society."^ Though Laurens had always "a deep 
rooted aversion to gaming," he would rarely, to humor the 
company, play for a moderate stake, always pa3n.ng his losses, 
but refusing to accept any winnings; and though he dis- 
approved strongly of dueling, "in two or three instances he 
yielded to the fashionable folly of accepting a challenge"; 
but, as we know, he always refused to return the fire of his 
antagonist. 3 

Laurens was an orthodox Episcopalian of the moderate 
Puritan — or rather let us say of the fine Huguenot type. We 
can never forget that it was from the Huguenot stock on both 
father's and mother's side that he sprang both by blood and 
temper. He is an illustration of the debt which America 
owes to this splendid element, which, as has been remarked, 
has exercised an influence on our history so far beyond the 
proportion of its numbers. Tolerance illumined his piety 
and made it, though firm as crystal, yet as clear. He tells us 
that even as a boy his soul rebelled at the damnation fulmined 
by the Athanasian creed against all who doubted its slightest 
tenet ; and he frequently expressed his passionate hatred of all 
attempts to bind men's consciences. He had the liberalism of 

' Laurens to Martha Laurens, Aug. i8, 1782, in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

^ Ramsay's Memoirs, 281. 

3 It is very strange that Ramsay here, like Laurens in his letters, 
seems to allude to a duel to which no specific reference appears. Nobody 
was hurt; the newspapers of that day were very skimpy and probably one 
duel more or less amounted to very Uttle with a gentleman of prominence. 



440 Life of Henry Laurens 

the eighteenth century without any of its laxness, as is illus- 
trated by his judgment of Voltaire written in Geneva in 1773 : 

I know too little of Voltaire to presume to enter upon particulars relative 
to his history ; but in general I may say that he seems to enjoy blessings 
which neither King nor church nor the combined force of ignorance and 
envy can rob us of, a sound conscience and peace of mind. His passage, 
therefore, be his errors in judgment what they may, must be smooth ; and 
I have too much charity if it does not also prove safe. The mistakes of the 
most brilliant reptile fancy cannot defeat the schemes of unerring Wisdom. ' 

This is from a man who wrote regarding the outrageous 
midnight invasion of his house by the Stamp Act mob, "tho 
I would not swear I could not forbear to Damn them very 
heartily — a language that I had ever before been unacquainted 
with;"* who, when tortured with the gout, would "whistle like 
McAlpine instead of cursing and swearing like— some gouty 
fellows"; who declined ever to write a business letter on 
Sunday^ and who ordered "a barrel organ which may serve 
as an ornamental piece of furniture, (and) afford as many tunes 
as such a machine is capable of, particularly a variety of psalm 
tunes."'' A very pious order, and a very pious sight: the 
gouty old man listening in the evening of the day — and of his 
day — to the "psalm tunes" as they float out over the quiet 
waters of the broad Cooper and reflecting as he thinks of all 
those he may meet on the other side of another river that in 
"the schemes of unerring Wisdom" even a Voltaire may have 
found safe passage. 

But the keynote of his religious character was resignation 
to the divine will. A deeper meaning of his early motto, 
Optimum quod evenit, appears in his expression as an old 
man, "Whatever God wills must be best, now or eventu- 
ally. "^ Three days after news of John's death, when troubled 
also by other griefs, he wrote after reflecting that his afflictions 
were less than those of others, "If I were to murmur I should 

' Laurens to Richard Oswald, May 31, 1773. 

» Laurens to Wm. Fisher, Feb. 27, 1766, in Etting Papers in Hist. Soc. 
Penn., Autograph Letters, VI. 

3 Letter of Jan. 14, 1769. * Letter of June 21, 1787. 

s Laurens to Martha Laurens, Aug. 18, 1782, in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



Opinions and Character 441 

commit blasphemy."^ His expression to William Bell, July 
5, 1785, was only a repetition of 1770 and earlier, the outcome 
of a calm victory over his afflictions : 

The end of all "disagreeable disappointments" can only be, my dear 
friend, at the end of life. Pray rather that we may have reason and fortitude 
to encounter and bear with becoming submission every accident and dis- 
appointment that shall in the meantime befaU us. 

The breadth which marked Laurens's religious character 
was dominant, though sometimes after a struggle, in his 
politics. Though ready to sacrifice life and fortune in defense 
of his country, he was never ready to persecute a Tory or to 
denominate one who refused to adopt his views a public enemy. 
The purity and simplicity of his republicanism were unaffected 
by his wealth and social position. His history and nature alike 
kept him free from the narrow caste spirit which by its practice 
disowns the liberal and progressive past out of which its own 
opportunity and title to distinction come. To his son he 
wrote, "I had added the Peerages of Great Britain & Ireland 
as a useful toy in your library, "and concerning the Laurences 
of Poictiers, "They write sensibly & free from that pompous 
French flourish which would have disgusted me. "^ The son 

' Laurens to James Laurens, Nov. 15, 1782, in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

' Laurens to John Laurens, Oct. 8, 1773, and Jan. 21, 1774, the latter in 
5. C. Hist. Mag., iii., 211. 

Compare his daughter Mrs. Martha Ramsay's strictures upon the weak 
side of the old Carolina aristocracy: 

"I trust you wiU not be indolent, and that a manly shame (to be ashamed 
to do wrong is a manly feeling,) will prevent your adding yourself to the list 
of Carolina triflers, whose conduct has brought a college, such as Princeton, 
into disrepute." — "You must be frugal, and not attempt to vie in wasting 
money with the sons of rich planters, who only go to college for fashion's 
sake, and whose Uves are as useless as their expenses." — "Dr. Waddel has 
much trouble from the increased number of his town boys ; the Charleston- 
ians carry their idleness, their impatience of control, their extravagance, 
their self -consequence with them wherever they go, and even the best of 
them are, in general, far inferior to what, with their quick capacities, and 
Uvely imaginations, they might be, if they would make the virtuous en- 
deavor." — "With regard to your spending a couple of succeeding years in 
Charleston, I shall oppose all my influence to so mad a scheme. You 
should rather spend them in the Indian country, and learn the rugged 



442 » Life of Henry Laurens 

of a man of sterling character who, compelled through his 
father's fidelity to religion to start life at the bottom round, 
was not ashamed to learn his trade at the saddler's bench and 
by his virtues rose to competency, Laurens repeated on a larger 
scale his father's history, thus supplying another illustration 
that on this continent an epoch of the world had begun in 
which undeserved class privilege was to count for less and the 
work of each individual for more than in older countries still 
held in the grip of outworn conventions. And of these con- 
ditions he was one of the finest products. Bred in the fierce 
conflicts of colonial politics in the most vitaUy creative period 
in the history of South Carolina, he embodied, without extrava- 
gance or extreme, the precious spirit and result of that epoch- 
making time. "Coming at last," says Professor Tyler, ^ 
"upon the arena of national politics, he was soon recognized 
for what he was — a trusty, sagacious, lofty, imperturbable 
character — a man whom Washington could love and lean 
upon ; of whom even the bitterest of the loyalists had to speak 
with admiration and forbearance." He was one of the most 
national in his views, one of the most statesmanlike in his 
conceptions, of the men in public life during his continental 
service. He speaks of himself in 1783 as one who "has lost 
thirty or forty thousand pounds sterling and whose whole time 
for eight years past has been devoted to the public, estranged 
from his own affairs " ; and in 1785, he states that the war cost 
him 40,000 guineas.^ Did any other public servant suffer so 
severely, so steadily, with such knowledge of all it was costing 
and with such freedom from any inclination to save himself 
by merely laying down his task? 

As Laurens lived only four years under the Federal Con- 
stitution and without part in public life, we have little informa- 
tion as to his attitude towards the political parties which were 

virtues of savages, than in the desultory, dissipated habits of Charleston." 
(Extracts from Mrs. Ramsay's letters to her son, in Memoirs, 283, 291, 
297, 305.) We must remember that these passages strike the weaknesses 
of any rich society and that they are expressions of a very severe judge. 

^ Literary Hist, of the Amer, Revolution, ii., 244. 

' Letters of Feb. 18, 1783, and Dec. 12, 1785. 



Opinions and Character 443 

then taking shape. Yet his history and what sidelights we 
possess make it impossible to doubt that his views were those 
of the moderate Federalists. In the years following the Revo- 
lution, the old feuds of Tory and Whig, the excitement over 
our relations with England and France, and the severe hard- 
ships due to the wreck of business and agriculture made South 
Carolina, and particularly the region around Charleston, the 
scene of such violent conflicts between the forces of conser- 
vatism and licentious radicalism as to threaten orderly 
government. The need of a bulwark against such dangers was 
the reason for the adoption of the Federal Constitution by the 
compact minority which managed the State government and 
for the organization of the brilliant Federalist party which 
for several years controlled the commonwealth.^ Laurens 
could hardly have opposed this party without repudiating his 
past.^ We recall that in 1779 he considered moving for a 
constitutional convention. "We are rather late now and 
much up hill work to be performed," he wrote July 13, 1787, 
in recalling this; "nevertheless I entertain good hopes." 
The following letters were written immediately after the fram- 
ing of the Constitution. The desire expressed to see an end of 
paper money and the violation of contracts and the opinion 
that the President's veto should be absolute indicate his 
leaning towards a strong administration: 

Before this arrives you will have seen the system produced by the late 
convention of the States. It is infinitely better than our present Confedera- 
tion, liable, I think, to a very few exceptions, but it has to pass through the 
ordeal of thirteen Assemblies, and I am very sure some of them will not 
like it, because it is calculated to make them honest. ^ 

A letter of three days later says ^ : 

' This subject is ably treated in an article by Prof. Ulrich B. Phillips, 
"The South Carolina Federalists," in the American Hist. Review, xiv., 529 
and 731, April and July, 1909. 

2 His son-in-law Ramsay was a leader among the Federalists; his son- 
in-law Charles Pinckney, though active in securing the adoption of the 
Constitution, was later the chief organizer and leader of the Republicans. 

3 Laurens to Edward Bridgen, Esq., London, Oct. 8, 1787. 
* Condensed where not in quotation marks. 



444 Life of Henry Laurens 

"I have one capital objection to the system of our late Convention," 
namely, that the President's veto is not absolute. It would have been 
better to have no veto whatever than this, as "the shadow of authority 
which he is at present vested with may at any time produce bickerings and 
animosity, but can never answer any good end." Everything else is a 
great improvement. 

Laurens was quoted in print by William Bell, of Philadelphia, 
as saying that the Constitution met his views. He hastened 
to say, however, that in two important respects it did not: 
First, he thought that one house with an absolute Presidential 
veto would be better ; and second, he thought that the represen- 
tatives should be subject to instruction and recall by their 
States : 

According to that system two houses are necessary to pass a law and the 
President is authorized to interpose his objections. Why should we rashly 
embrace the system itself, the operation only of one house? None of your 
writers, I think, have remarked that the delegates are exempt from being 
amenable to their respective courts. This in my humble opinion is a great 
blemish. I have much more to say on the subject, but won't trouble you; 
don't advertise me again. Little harm or Uttle good can the system do me 
as an individual ; I am hastening out of its reach ; my wishes are for poster- 
ity. Yet I acknowledge the system is an improvement [upon the Confed- 
eration]. I do not see all the bugbears in it which some of your writers 
have depicted. Nevertheless in a work of such vast importance, 'tis our 
duty to proceed with cautious and wise deliberation.^ 

An interesting sidelight on his attitude towards a system 
guaranteeing uniform commercial laws, and incidentally on his 
sense of justice and his understanding of the principles of 
taxation, is his strong condemnation of internal tariff duties 
between the States as futile efforts of the planting interests 
who control every Assembly to ward off the burden of taxation 
from themselves. The fact that he owned twenty-fotir shares, 
in the United States Bank suggests Federalist sympathies.* 

From Laurens's politics we pass naturally to his attitude 
towards slavery. His ideas on this subject underwent a 

' Laurens to William Bell, Philadelphia, Nov. 29, 1787. 

' On the internal duties, Laurens to Wm. Lee, Aug. 22, 1782, in Laurens 
MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. ; on the bank shares, Laurens to Wm. Bell, Feb. 
1792. Par value of a share was $400. 



opinions and Character 445 

gradual but steady change which transformed him from the 
enthusiastic importer of Africans in the '50's to the advocate of 
universal emancipation in 1776. His father was an opponent 
of the system and a prophet of its overthrow; but the tempta- 
tion of the extraordinary profits to be derived from the slave 
trade closed Henry Laurens's heart against the precepts of that 
father, though they never lost their hold upon the younger 
brother James, who grew to be a wealthy merchant without 
engaging in that branch. The earliest expression on slavery 
which we have from Laurens is the following to his Moravian 
friend Ettwein in 1763, which reveals that at that early date 
he, like his father, condemned slavery, though he entertained 
no plan for its abolition : 

Your observations upon the influence & effect of the negro slavery upon 
the morals & practices of young people are but too justly founded & I have 
often reflected with much concern on the same subject & wished that our eco- 
nomy & government differ'd from the present system ; but alas! since our 
constitution is as it is, what can individuals do? . . . [After regretting the 
existence of laws sustaining slavery he continues:] We see the negro trade 
much promoted of late by our Northern neighbors who formerly censured 
& condemned it. The difficulties which a few who wish to deal with those 
servants as with brethren in a state of subordination meet with are almost 
insurmountable. The bad precepts & worse examples daily & hourly set 
before them by blacks & whites surrounding them often eradicates in one 
day the labour that has been bestowed on them for years. These are dis- 
couraging circumstances ; nevertheless I am persuaded that there are some 
few who wiU not be defeated in their strife & who think that if they gain 
but one soul in their whole life time that they are happy instruments & as 
such are amply rewarded for their trouble. ' 

How detached were his views at that time from any practical 
scheme for their realization is shown by his sneering the very 
next year at those who voted to stop the foreign slave trade. 
The first actual fruit of his thoughts was the significant fact 
that when the trade was re-opened he chose not to take it up 
again. ^ But the seed thought had fallen into good ground, and 

'Laurens to Edwin (Ettwein), March 19, 1763, in Laurens letter book 
in Hist. Soc. Penn. Laurens's copying clerk several times miscopied 
Ettwein's name as "Edwin." 

^ The development of the sentiment against slavery and the slave trade 
in South Carolina in the latter part of the i8th century is traced in Chapter 



446 Life of Henry Laurens 

by 1776 he had determined to emancipate his own numerous 
slaves, and at least a small group of South Carolinians looked 
to general emancipation by the State, as the following notable 
extracts from his correspondence prove. In the case of his 
fellow citizens it was merely the passing enthusiasm of philo- 
sophical liberalism which swept through the world at the 
time of the Revolution, but with him it was the coming to 
maturity of views long nurttued. August 14, 1776, he wrote 
to his son John : 

My negroes there {i. e. in Georgia) are to a man attached to me; so are 
all of mine in this country {i. e. in South Carolina) ; not one has attempted 
to desert. Many hundreds of that colour have been stolen by the servants 
of K. G. 3d. You know, my dear son, I abhor slavery. I was bom in a 
country in which slavery had been established by British Parliaments and 
the laws of the country for ages before my existence. I found the Christian 
religion and slavery growing under the same authority and cultivation. I 
nevertheless dislike it. In former days there was no combating the preju- 
dices of men, supported by interest. The day I hope is approaching when 
from principles of gratitude and justice every man will strive to be foremost 
in complying with the golden rule. £20,000 sterling would my negroes 
produce if sold at auction tomorrow. I am not the man who enslaved them ; 
they are indebted to Englishmen for that favour. Nevertheless I am 
devising means for manumitting many of them and for cutting off the entail 
of slavery. Great powers oppose me: the laws and customs of my country, 
my own and the avarice of my countrymen. What wUl my children say 
if I deprive them of so much estate? These are difficulties, but not insuper- 
able. I hope to receive your advice and assistance in this affair in good time.^ 

The declaration that he was "devising means for manu- 
mitting many of them and for cutting off the entail of slavery" 
cannot be stretched to mean more, in the connection of the 
words, than that he intended the freedom of the children of 
those who were not among those themselves set free; but a 
letter of 1785 shows that the prohibition of the slave trade as 
part of the non-importation association of 1769 was intended 
by a small group at least as a step towards the eventual aboli- 
tion of slavery : 

VI., which see for a statement of the attitude of Laurens and others before 
1776 and the history of the slave trade both before and after that date. 
^ S. C. Hist. Mag., x., 49-50. 



Opinions and Character 447 

The time was, when we solemnly engaged against further importations 
under a pretense of working by gradual steps a total abolition [of the slave 
trade and slavery]. We were then indeed in a religious mood & had ap- 
pealed to God.^ 

To his father's emancipation sentiments of August, 1776, 
John replied, October 26th, that he had long meditated the 
subject and entertained similar views. He wrote: 

The equitable conduct which you have resolved upon with respect to 
your negroes will undoubtedly meet with great opposition from interested 
men. I have often conversed upon the subject, and I have scarcely ever 
met with a native of the Southern provinces or the W. Indies who did not 
obstinately recur to the most absurd arguments in support of slavery; but 
it was easy to perceive that they considered only their own advantage aris- 
ing from the fact, and embarrassed themselves very Httle about the right. 
Indeed when driven from everything else, they generally exclaimed : With- 
out slaves how is it possible for us to be rich? There may be some incon- 
venience and even danger in advancing men suddenly from a state of 
slavery, while possess'd of the manners and principles incident to that state, 
there may be danger, I say, in advancing such men too suddenly to the rights 
of freemen. The example of Rome suffering from swarms of bad citizens who 
were f reedmen is a warning to us to proceed with caution ; and the necessity 
for it is an argument of the complete mischief occasioned by our continued 
usurpation — we have sunk the African and their descendants below the 
standard of humanity, ^ and almost render'd them incapable of that blessing 
which equal Heaven bestow'd upon us all. By what shades and degrees 
they are to be brought to the happy state which you propose for them 
is not to be determined in a moment. Whatever I can collect from books 
and the conversation of sensible men shaU be carefully attended to and 
consider 'd. In the mean time I am glad to find that you had the same con- 
fidence in me that I had in you. The plan of agitation has been for some 
time a favorite one of mine, and I should have written my thoughts as fuUy 
upon the subject as I have spoken them here to Mr. Manning and others of 



' Laurens to the Speaker of the S. C. House of Representatives, Jan. 31, 
1785, in Ford Col., N. Y. Pub. Lib. See fuller quotation below. Note the 
thoroughly characteristic sarcasm of the last sentence. 

^ The young enthusiast does not designate the time when they had ever 
been up to the "standard of humanity" from which he assumed they had 
been sunk by being brought to America. This consideration is, of course, 
no argument for the continuance of slavery, but it is a matter of great 
importance for other reasons. 



448 Life of Henry Laurens 

our friends who have opposed me in it, but that the present state of our 
affairs seem'd to require the matter to be a little postpon'd.' 

A little over a year later we find John even outrunning the 
enthusiasm of his father and proposing to raise and command a 
black regiment. The father replied that it was "a very serious 
and important affair" which they would discuss when they 
met. John pursued the subject with a persistence which led 
him to neglect portions of his father's letters bearing on other 
matters, until the parent felt constrained to lecture him with 
some impatience. It is plain, he said, your "whole mind is 
enveloped in the cloud of that project" ; that you are wild for 
a regiment ; but you had better take your chances of getting a 
white one. After exposing the impracticability of the plan, 
particularly on account of the character of the slaves, he 
continues : 

The more I think of and the more I have consulted on your scheme, the 
less I approve of it. Wisdom dictates that I should rather oppose than 
barely not consent to it; but indulgence and friendship warranted by wis- 
dom bids me let you take your own course and draw selfconviction. There- 
fore come forward, young Colonel; proceed to South Carolina; you shall 
have as full authority over all my negroes as justice to your brother and 
sisters and a very little consideration for myself will permit you to exercise; 
& so far do what you please, without regard to St. Mary Axe. * Your own 
good sense will direct you to proceed warily in opposing the opinions of 
whole nations, lest, without effecting any good, you become a bye word, and 
be so transmitted to your children's children. . . . My dear son, I pray 
God protect you and add to your knowledge and learning, if it be necessary, 
discretion.* 

' John Laurens to Henry Laurens, Oct. 26, 1776, in S. C. Hist. Mag., v.. 
205-6. 

^I. e., without regard to the effect upon the reputation and fortune of his 
wife and child, who were living on St. Mary Axe, a fashionable street in 
London. 

3 Laurens to John Laurens, Feb. 6, 1778, in 5. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 50-51. 
It is well to state here that free negroes served in the Continental army 
around Boston and in every period of the war. Rhode Island emancipated 
every slave who enlisted, the State compensating the master. (Bancroft, 
iv., 323 ; v., 219, 369-70.) Mr. J. C. Fitzpatrick of the Library of Congress 
showed me a letter of Gen. William Heath to Washington, June 20, 1780, in 
which he speaks of Col. (Christopher) Greene's regiment "of blacks" from 
Rhode Island. McCrady, iii., 314, note, states that the British employed 



opinions and Character 449 

But no prudential considerations could deter him. His 
idealistic enthusiasm for emancipation knew no limitations. 
"For my part," he declared, "it will be my duty and my pride 
to transform the timid slave into a firm defender of liberty 
& render him worthy to enjoy it himself." "As a soldier, 
as a citizen, as a man, I am interested to engage in this work, 
and I would chearfully sacrifice the largest portion of my 
future expectations to its success."^ It had become a fixed 
idea, and illustrated the most serious defect and highest glory 
in his make-up — a certain reckless impetuosity, uncalculating 
of difficulties and dashing itself in defiance of reason against 
insuperable obstacles — a trait sure sooner or later to make 
him a beneficent martyr or a useless sacrifice. 

But as the fortimes of war grew more desperate many felt 
ready for the step which the alert and daring mind of young 
Laurens had projected. So prostrate was South Carolina in 
the winter of 1779 that the Governor sent General Isaac 
Huger to Philadelphia to seek relief. The extremity at which 
they had arrived cannot be better measured than by the fact 
that Huger, Henry Laurens, and Drayton all were constrained 
to favor the raising of black regiments.^ Laurens, writing to 
Washington, March 16, 1779, remarked: 

Had we arms for three thousand such black men as I could select in 
Carolina, I should have no doubt of success in driving the British out of 
Georgia and subduing East Florida before the end of July. 

a few negro troops in the last year of the war, and Lossing, ii., 530, says 
that they employed armed negroes in the defense of Savannah in October, 
1779. It is also interesting to note that the militia law of South Carolina 
of 1747, e. g., provided that in time of alarm or actual invasion faithful 
slaves were to be armed. (Smith, 175-6.) I know of no instance of its 
having been done, however. Slaves were not to constitute over half the 
forces in Charleston nor over one-third outside Charleston. Slaves or white 
indentured servants who captured an enemy or his colors were to be freed, 
the public compensating the master, and for other acts of heroism the slave 
was to have a uniform and be free every year upon the day of his heroic 
deed. Truly the men of 1 747 had come but dimly to understand the nature 
and exigencies of slavery. 

^ John Laurens to his father, Feb. 17, and March 10, 1779, in 5. C. Hist. 
Mag., vi., 138 and 139. ^ Journals oj Cong., xiii., 386. 

39 



450 Life of Henry Laurens 

Washington replied that the British would follow the ex- 
ample and could furnish arms for a larger number, and that 
the plan would create great discontent among those not freed. ' 
Nevertheless Congress resolved, March 29th, to recommend 
South Carolina and Georgia to raise three thousand negro troops 
under white officers, every negro who served faithfully to the 
end of the war to be free and Congress to recompense the 
masters.^ John Laurens as he hurried to the aid of his native 
State had the satisfaction of being charged with this recom- 
mendation. ^ In the Legislature, of which he was a member, 
he urged his plan. The sinking State, already embittered 
by neglect, rejected with scorn this answer to her bitter cry. 
"Your black regiment," his father wrote, "is blown up with 
contemptuous huzzas." The only surprise is that it did re- 
ceive a few votes.'' The whole incident exercised a strong 
alienating influence towards the central government. South 
Carolina felt herself not only abandoned, but mocked and 
insulted — a frame of mind which doubtless had its influence 
in leading Governor Rutledge to propose when the triumph 
of the British a few weeks later seemed inevitable that the 
State should withdraw from the contest and remain neutral 
to the end of the war. 

To young Laurens's announcement of the failure of his pro- 
posal his father replied with sympathy and with a view which 
swept far beyond the immediate issue. He condemned the 
avarice and prejudice which stood in the way and, predicting 
that emancipation would yet be accomplished, he gloried in 
the fact that at that time his father, who foretold it, and his 
son, who began it, would be remembered. If abolition had 
come in South Carolina by her own voluntary act, this prophecy 
would have been fulfilled; and even as it is, many of the com- 
patriots of these three generations of Laurenses will think their 
views to their honor. The text of this remarkable letter is as 
follows : 

I knew the pride and the naughtiness of the hearts of so many of our 

' Washington's Works, vi., 204, n. ^ Journals, xiii., 387-8. 

3 His going had no connection with the plan for negro troops, however. 

4 Washington's Works, vi., 204, n. 



Opinions and Character 451 

fellow citizens would seduce them to spurn at the mode you speak of for 
completing our Confoederal Regiments; that the avarice of others would 
impel them to revolt from the proposition for erecting black battalions and 
I long since foresaw and foretold you the almost insurmovmtable difficulties 
which would obstruct the progress of your Uberal ideas. Nothing wonder- 
ful in all this. Is it a light work to bring men accustomed ( ) ' affluence 
and absolute command to submit without murmuring to peremptory orders 
under the penalty of corporal punishment? and it is certainly a great task 
effectually to persuade rich men to part willingly with the very source of 
their wealth and, as they suppose, tranquillity. You have encountered 
rooted habits and prejudices, than which there is not in the history of man 
recited a more arduous engagement. If you succeed you wiU lay the corner- 
stone for accomplishing a prediction of your Grandfather and your name 
wiU be honorably written and transmitted to posterity; but even the at- 
tempt without perfect success will, I know, aflEord you unspeakable self- 
satisfaction. The work will at a future day be efficaciously taken up, and 
then it will be remembered who began it in South Carolina. ^ 

^ One or two words in MS. obliterated. 

' Laurens to John Laurens, Sept. 21, 1779, in S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 149- 
50. The persistence of the anti-slavery sentiment in the Laurens family 
was remarkable and can only be accounted for by an inborn instinct of 
fairness and liberty. John Laurens, the father of Henry Laurens, in pre- 
dicting, before the middle of the eighteenth century, the downfall of slavery 
must have disapproved of the institution. James Laurens, brother of 
Henry, refused to engage in the slave trade; Henry's and Col, John's 
unqualified condemnation we have just seen. The feeling never died in 
the family. I have the following from Mr. Henry Rutledge Laurens, the 
present head of the family: Major David Ramsay, son of Martha Laurens 
Ramsay, tried to send his slaves to a country where they could be free. If 
the Confederacy had succeeded, Mr. Whitaker, another descendant of 
Laurens, intended to send his slaves to Demerara. Mrs. Martha R. Roper 
{n6e Laurens) for years before the war of Secession paid her slaves wages, 
the law not allowing her to free them; and it is to be doubted whether, 
in a strict construction, she was not violating the stringent law on the sub- 
ject of arrangements amoimting to emancipations. She used to say regard- 
ing a skilled mechanic of great ingenuity whom she owned that she had no 
right to such labor free. She is the lady referred to in Rhodes's United 
States since 18^0, iii., 210, n., who, when requested to lend the table said 
by family tradition to be the one on which the Declaration of Independence 
was signed for the signing of the Ordinance of Secession, replied that she 
would burn it to ashes first. This incident was related to me by Mr. Henry 
Rutledge Laurens before I saw it in Rhodes. 

The strength of the anti-slavery sentiment at times in South Carolina 
among a small minority is not generally known. One branch of the Grimk6 



452 Life of Henry Laurens 

In 1782 John Laurens renewed in the South Carolina As- 
sembly his proposal for negro troops, and though it of course 
failed, yet it received twice as many votes as before. ^ 

We recall Laurens's peculiar expression regarding Lord 
Mansfield's Somerset decision which he heard delivered, an 
expression leaving us in doubt as to whether he meant to sneer 
at the judge's allowing masters to hurry their slaves beyond 
his jurisdiction by his delay or to praise him for declaring 
slavery incompatible with English law. ^ At all events, during 
his stay in England ten years later Laurens was a convinced 
abolitionist and sorted constantly with men of that principle. 
Among these was the famous Dr. Richard Price, who gave 
Laurens at the time of his return to America some copies 
of one of his books for distribution at home, probably the 
Observations upon the Importance of the American Revolu- 
tion, published in 1784.^ Laurens immediately placed them 

faxtiily went North and became abolitionists of an extreme type. Hundreds 
of Quakers are said to have left the State on account of slavery, and it is 
certain that this feeling played some part, though probably not consider- 
able, in the exhausting drain of white inhabitants to the West before the 
advancing tide of plantation slavery up the State in the three or four de- 
cades following the invention of the cotton gin. I happen to know of the 
case of a wealthy citizen of the Piedmont region who about the middle of 
the nineteenth century sold his entire real estate in order to move into 
Indiana or Illinois in order to escape the presence of slavery. A miscar- 
riage in the transaction prevented his going. Fairfield county, e. g., had 
2313 fewer white inhabitants in 1910 than in 1820; and several other 
counties with undiminished boundaries, as Chester and Newberry, suffered 
severely in the same way. Anti-slavery sentiment in South Carolina before 
i860 and Union sentiment in 1860-5 ^^re interesting fields as yet almost 
untouched. Cf. Harlow Lindley, The Quakers in the old Northwest, 5-6, 
Miss. Valley Hist. Asso., vol. 5. 

' John Laurens to Henry Laurens; also Washington's Works, viii., 323. 

* See above, p. 191. 

3 Other writings of Dr. Price's might meet the requirement as to sub- 
stance, but this one, whose 13th chapter is a sharp denunciation of slavery 
and the slave trade, answers best from the standpoint both of date and 
substance. Laurens to Price, from Dover, May 14, 1782, thanks him for 
parts of his writings. (Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc.) Laurens's 
English friend Thomas Day, the philosopher and novelist, also published in 
1784 an energetic attack on slavery, as remarked in a note on p. 83 of the 



opinions and Character 453 

where he thought they would do most good — in the hands of 
leading members of the South Carolina Legislature. The 
dissatisfaction which the book's denunciation of slavery pro- 
duced elicited from him the following firm endorsement of its 
principles : 

I have not had time to read a single page of the Doctor's book, but if it 
contains attacks against the slave trade & slavery I am of opinion with 
yourself & Mr. Izard, the doctrine wiU not in the present day be pleasing to 
the generality of the inhabitants of this State; yet the time may come, 
the time was, when we solemnly engaged against further importations under 
a pretence of working by gradual steps a total aboUtion. We were then 
indeed in a reUgious mood & had appealed to God. 

As an apology for presenting the book, the contents of which I was ignor- 
ant of, permit me. Sir, to say, I had received a previos intimation of the work 
from a judicios friend in London, who in general terms highly applauded it. 
This circumstance in addition to the celebrated character of the author & 
his known friendship to the United States induced me to distribute the 
copies immediately upon receipt, but had I been fully apprized of the parts 
thought to be exceptionable, a suppression would have involved a greater 
crime, setting up my judgement of the merits as a standard. Doctor Price 
leaves only the disposal of his books to my judgement, this directed me to 
present some of them without delay at fountain head.^ 

Laurens opposed slavery not only upon religious and hu- 
manitarian grounds, but also because it kept out white settlers 
and created an economic and social system characterized by 
" a glare of precarious riches . . . the possession of individuals " 
instead of " the riches of the State . . . greater and more per- 
manent. " He would have seen the ample confirmation of his 
views could he have foreseen that by 1910 the advance of the 
great slave- worked plantation was actually to reduce the white 
population of Fairfield County, e. g.,to a figure 2313 below 
what it had been ninety years before, while Newberry, Chester, 
and others were to suffer only less severely by the awful 
sacrifice being made of the permanent interests of the common- 

1785 edition of Price's work. Price's book went through seven editions. 
Mirabeau immediately translated it into French. — British Museum Cata- 
logue of Printed Books. 

' Laurens to Speaker of the S. C. House of Representatives, Jan. 31, 1785, 
in Ford Col., N. Y. Pub. Lib. 



454 Life of Henry Laurens 

wealth by and for a small favored class. Along with his desire 
to exterminate slavery went a plan for securing white settlers. 
He wrote while in England, February 15, 1783, to William 
Drayton, "Have you reflected upon the great point of the 
abolition of slavery ? " To the same friend he wrote eight days 
later : 

The diffictdty in my mind referred to future grants and increased value 
of land in the southern States. Respecting the abolition of slavery, after 
having fuUy considered the subject in a course of years not a few, I am no 
longer at a "stand. " Nevertheless should I proceed in the plan laid down, 
chiefly for the government of my own conduct, 'tis not improbable I shall 
stand almost alone. Interest will combat moral justice and the nickname 
of sound poHcy [will be] introduced as an invincible ally. True policy in 
my opinion Ues on the other side of the question. — ^Reasoning from the 
colour carries no conviction. By perseverance the black may be blanched 
and the "stamp of Providence " effectually effaced. Gideon Gibson escaped 
the penalties of the negro law by producing upon comparison more red and 
white in his face than cotdd be discovered in the faces of half the descend- 
ants of the French refugees in our House of Assembly, including your old 
acquaintance the Speaker. I challenged them all to the trial. The children 
of this same Gideon, having passed through another stage of whitewash were 
of fairer complexion than their prosecutor George Gabriel.^' — But to con- 
fine them to their original clothing will be best. They may and ought to 
continue a separate people, may be subjected by special laws, kept harmless, 
made useful and freed from the tyranny and arbitrary power of individuals; 
but as I have already said, this difficulty cannot be removed by arguments 
on this side of the water. Future grants of land will in a considerable degree 
depend upon future importation of negroes in the Southern States. Should 
the future importation be prohibited or greatly restricted, the land already 
granted wiU be parceled out to poor white adventurers at easy rents or mode- 
rate purchases. There will not be such a glare of precarious riches as we 
have formerly seen the possession of individuals; but the riches of the State 
wiU be greater and more permanent. Such persons as you allude to, I have 

' Laurens seems to be arguing here that slavery and the negro laws 
cannot be justified as based on color, since they were made to apply to 
some persons of such slight degree of African blood as to be lighter than 
some Caucasians. Incidentally he indicates the tragic position of the 
very light mtilatto. " George Gabriel " was Col. G. G. Powell, a prominent 
politician on the popular side in the years just before the Revolution. 
The Speaker referred to as a descendant of the French refugees was Peter 
Manigault, Speaker of the Commons House of Assembly 1765-72. The 
next sentence shows Laurens's condemnation of race mixture. 



opinions and Character 455 

no doubt will make a happy exchange, mechanics will find ftdl employment 
and good wages. Husbandmen may obtain land upon much better terms 
than they have been accustomed to. But I dare not speak positively of 
encouragements from the State. I am unauthorized and ignorant upon 
that head. You and I can have no doubt that indulgencies and even pre- 
miums wUl be granted to men and families who are likely to become valuable 
citizens. We must wait with a little further patience for their final "re- 
sult." I won't say 'tis over our head the old House totters; but 'tis 
certainly true that want of wisdom in that House may soon throw us again 
into a flame and retard the building of our own. They are mad about 
something which they feel to be deficient; and not a conjurer among them 
have yet come near the point. Should they discover it, down indeed would 
tumble a certain House. 

To Laurens no immigrants could be more acceptable than 
the thrifty and upright Moravians with whom he had long 
been familiar. He knew, we cannot doubt, of their well- 
established settlement in North Carolina dating from 1753, 
as his friendship with Bishop John Ettwein went back to 1760, 
when that good missionary made a tour to the Southern 
Indians.' The pastor so endeared himself to Laurens's 
family that even the children sent him affectionate messages. 
In 1763 Laurens wrote confirming his offer of assistance to the 
brethren from Germany if they would come through Charles- 
ton on their way to Bethabara, N. C, and the same year he 
assisted Van Gammern and others of the brotherhood on their 
visit to his city.^ During his life in Pennsylvania Laurens 
became more familiar with these excellent people. The Mo- 
ravian town of Bethlehem thirty miles north of Philadelphia 
was the site of hospitals and military storehouses during the 
Revolution. September 21, 1777, says Bishop Levering's 
History of Bethlehem : 

Henry Laurens arrived, who in November following became President of 
Congress. His favorable disposition toward the Moravian settlements, and 

' National Cyclopedia of America Biography, v., 90. The first publica- 
tion of Laurens's speech in resignation of the Presidency of Congress was 
from a MS. copy which he sent Ettwein. 

^ Laurens to Rev. John Edwin (Ettwein ; the misspelling is partly due to 
Laurens, who uses only one t, and partly due to his copying clerk), Nov. 
10, 1763, etc., in Laurens's letter book in Hist. Soc. Penn. See there letters 
to other Moravians. 



456 Life of Henry Laurens 

his relations of intimate personal friendship with Ettwein, proved of 
inestimable value to Bethlehem, and to the interests of the Brethren gener- 
ally.' 

July 14, 1787, Laurens wrote the Bishop warmly offering 
two thousand or twenty-five hundred acres around Ninety - 
Six for a Moravian settlement. He claimed no merit of 
generosity: "While other people applaud me for a seem- 
ing act of benevolence, I shall enhance the value of the reserved 
quantity." Correspondence about the matter continued for 
several years, but without result. At no time has the world, 
or South Carolina in particular, wanted for the wisest counsel, 
but many a time it has wanted for the wisdom to accept it. 
Others besides Laurens were meditating the same problems. 
E. g., in 1795 there was an "Emigrant Society" in Charleston 
seeking by active propaganda to attract settlers from France, 
Germany and the British Isles. ^ The difficulties which he 
saw from the beginning prevented Laurens from freeing his 
slaves, except a few individuals, though manumissions and 
liberal treatment continued very common in South Carolina 
until passions were aroused by the abolitionist campaign 
and attempted insurrection about 1820; and from his day to 
the day of the Wittekind the problem of obtaining good white 
immigrants has remained unsolved. ^ 

' I am under obligation to Miss Adelaide L. Fries, of Winston-Salem, 
N. C, for this information. 

' Documentary History of American Industrial Society, ii., 176; Charleston 
City Gazette, May 19, 1795. 

3 For a sketch of the attitude of South Carolina towards slavery in that 
period, see my sketch in The South in the Building of the Nation, ii., 45-49. 

In 1906 the Legislature of South Carolina, under the inspiration of 
Commissioner E. J. Watson, subsidized a plan for bringing immigrants into 
the State from northern Europe. The steamer Wittekind brought a 
cargo of five hundred in November, 1906, and another of one hundred and 
fifty in March, 1907, and great expectations were aroused. The difficulties 
to be overcome were very great, not to speak of the shiver of dread which 
many inferior whites felt at the prospect of competition with the new comers, 
and the Legislature abandoned a plan which will always be so much to the 
credit of its projectors. Mr. Watson, who kindly supplied the above dates 
and figures, thinks that the movement accomphshed its main object in 
attracting the attention of the outside world to the undeveloped resources 



Opinions and Character 457 

In the spring of 1792 Laurens was much in bed and was very 
feeble as the year wore on. During the first week of Decem- 
ber Mrs. Martha Laurens Ramsay, who, as on several other 
such occasions, seemed to possess a telepathic faculty, hurried 
to her father's home through difficulty and danger under the 
impulse of "so inexpressible a desire to see him, that nothing 
could exceed it, and nothing could satisfy it, but the going 
to see him."^ She was rewarded by hearing her devotion 
and skill praised in his latest words, and then her father, with- 
out knowing why his breathing became so labored, fell into 
unconsciousness, and at 10 o'clock in the morning of December 
8, 1792, two days after her arrival, he was gone.'' 

Laurens entertained on general grounds a preference for 
cremation, largely because of his "belief that several persons 
were buried before they were irrevocably dead." His horror 
of being buried alive was deepened by the following incident: 
When his daughter Martha was in her first year, she lay 
apparently dead from smallpox and was laid by an open win- 
dow awaiting a speedy interment. ^ Revived probably by 
the cool air, she was discovered by Dr. Moultrie to be alive 
and so was saved. Laurens accordingly closed his will with 
these words : 

And now having settled all affairs which relate to my estate and pro- 
vided for the different parts of my family in a manner which appears to me 
to be just and equitable, I come to the disposal of my own person. I 
solemnly enjoin it upon my son as an indispensable duty that as soon as he 
conveniently can after my decease, he cause my body to be wrapped in 
twelve yards of tow cloth and burnt until it be entirely and totaUy consumed 
and then collecting my bones deposit them wherever he shall think proper. 

Mrs. Ramsay refused to remain in the vicinity of "the 
awful ceremony," as she called the cremation. The affair has 

of the South in general and was largely responsible for the great forward 
movement in agricultural development which has occurred since. Probably 
a more correct statement would be that the Wittekind movement and the 
other were both expressions of the same widespread awakening. 

'Her letter, Dec. 17, 1792, to her husband, in Memoirs, 241. 

2 Charleston City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, Dec. 11, 1792; Ram- 
say's Memoirs, 242. 3 Ramsay's Memoirs, 13-14. 



458 Life of Henry Laurens 

been the subject of many sensational misrepresentations. 
Parson Weems invented the tale that Laurens said, "My flesh 
is too good for worms. I give it to the flames." The state- 
ment that the execution of the instructions was made the con- 
dition of his son's receiving his inheritance is equally false. ^ 
He was the first person, with the possible exception of the 
Indian aborigines, to be cremated in America. In the manner 
of ancient men, on the high bluff overlooking the water, the 
funeral pyre was built upon the hill opposite the one occupied 
by his house and his wishes were executed while the terrified 
servants quaked at the weird spectacle.^ 

The ashes were buried beside the grave of Col. John Laurens 
in the family graveyard at Mepkin. At the river, the high 
bluff divides into three stately hills ; the residence stood on 
the middle one; the cremation took place on the hill to the 
south, in front of the house, at a spot still marked by a square 
flat stone, whose companion yet lies at the doorstep of the ruins 
of the house. So powerfully has the incident impressed the 
popular imagination that the site of the funeral pyre is to 
this day pointed out as excursion boats pass the bluff. ^ The 
graveyard is on the hill to the north. The three hills were 
formerly a beautifully kept park of perhaps a hundred acres 
overlooking the river and the distant coimtry beyond. There 
are still traces of the avenues and paths, while a grand avenue 
of live oaks leads to the road a quarter of a mile away. The 

* Ramsay's Memoirs, 244. 

' The next instance of cremation in America was that of Baron Pakn, in 
December, 1 876, in Washington, Pa. The following references were suppUed 
by the research department of Nelson's Loose Leaf Encyclopedia: John 
Storer Cobb: A Quarter-Century of Cremation in America, Boston; Knight 
& MtUet, 1901; "The Cremation of Baron Palm," in Boston Medical & 
Surgical Journal, Dec. 14, 1876; John L. LeConte: " Cremation among the 
North American Indians," a review in Popular Science Monthly, December, 
1874, p. 254. 

3 In 1912, when I visited Mepkin, Pompey Hambleton (Hamilton?), an 
intelligent negro about sixty-five years old, took me to the site of the crema- 
tion. He was told many years ago by Mr. Peter Gourdin that the stone 
marked the spot. It agrees with the place indicated by the family 
tradition. 



opinions and Character 459 

English author Thomas Day wrote inscriptions in prose and 
verse for the place where John Laurens fell in battle ; but the 
father's aversion to ostentation caused him to have his own 
and his son's graves marked by simple stones without even a 
military title, bearing the names and dates only, except that 
that of John bears the words, "Duke et decorum est pro 
patria mori." The head and foot stones are ten feet two 
inches apart, giving the impression of the resting place of 
giants. 




LIEUT. -COLONEL JOHN LAURENS 

(Replica by Copley) 
From the original in the possession of Mr. Henry Rutledge Laurens, of Charleston, S. C. 



APPENDICES 



461 



APPENDIX I 

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN LAURENS 

In view of the lack of any life of John Laurens save a few inadequate 
sketches, I shall throw together here the information gathered concerning 
him not included in the body of this book which came in my way while 
writing the life of his father. 

JOHN LAURENS, one of the most noble, talented and in 
every way engaging and promising characters called into 
prominence by the American Revolution, was born in Charles- 
ton, S. C, October 28, 1754, the son of Henry Laurens and his 
wife Eleanor Ball.' On his father's side he was pure French 
Huguenot; on his mother's side, pure south country English. 
He was a bold, enterprising and precocious boy. On one occa- 
sion he left his sick bed and took an active part in extinguishing 
a fire.'* 

His early education was carefully conducted under the 
enthusiastic and intelligent interest of his father by Benjamin 
Lord and Revs. Himeli and Panton. Rev, Himeli seems to 
have been a French Swiss who in about 1773 returned to his 
own country, where he had his letters directed to "Himeli 

^Inscription on his grave stone at Mepkin; also letters of his father, 
Sept. 23, 1775, in S. C. Hist. Mag., v., 73. For some reason neither his 
birth nor baptism is found in the St. Philip's Parish Register. The date 
of his birth has carelessly been stated from 1753 (Century Dictionary) to 
"about 1756" (Wm. Gilmore Simms). 

2 Ramsay's S. C, ii., 494-5. Ramsay married John Laurens's sister 
Martha. His sketch of John, as that of Henry Laurens, though brief, is 
of great value in matters touching character and details which would 
naturally be known to members of the family, though containing several 
errors of detail probably due to trusting to memory at the time of writing. 

463 



464 Life of Henry Laurens 

Ancien Pasteur de Charlestown. " ' In the fall of 1771, as he 
was approaching seventeen years of age, John was taken by 
his father to Europe to complete his education. After some 
time spent under a private tutor, Rev. Richard Clarke, of 
Islington, London, his father decided to place him at Geneva 
as offering intellectual, and especially moral, advantages 
superior to what could at that time be found in England. He 
was never at school in France, as several writers carelessly 
state. His course of study included Latin, Greek, Italian, belles- 
lettres, physics, history, geography, mathematics, experimental 
philosophy, fencing, riding, drawing, and reading in the civil 
law, to which was added after he declared his intention in 1772 
of entering the bar a copy of Blackstone for private reading.^ 
The "ancien pasteur" was so pleased at what he heard of his 
former pupil's progress that he dubbed him "le Voltaire de 
votre Province," which indicates at least that he was not a 
narrow minded pastor.^ 

We need only remark here in addition to what was said in 
regard to Geneva in narrating his father's choice of that place 
in the chapter on his residence abroad to educate his sons, 
which should be read at this point,'* that this city of stem 
republican virtue and jealous independence left enduring 
marks upon young John Laurens, as will be abundantly evi- 
dent as we analyze his character and examine his views upon 
social and political questions. 

In October, 1774, John entered formally upon his legal edu- 
cation at the Middle Temple. During his residence in London 
he was often at the home of his father's friend William Mann- 
ing on the fashionable residence street, St. Mary Axe. He 
saw the amiable Miss (Martha) Manning quite frequently, he 
wrote his sister. ^ His admiration ripened into love and he 
soon proved that in Cupid's war, as in that of Mars, he was 

^ Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

= Henry Laurens to A. Garden, Feb. 19, 1774, and to James Laurens, 
Feb. 17, 1774. 

3 Himeli to John Laurens, Dec. 2, 1773, in L. I. Hist. Soc. . 

4 See above, p. 189. 

s John to Martha Laurens, May 5, 1775, in L. I. Hist. Soc. 



Appendix I 465 

in danger of being hurried by his zeal too fast for discretion. 
Hear his own story as he told it to his uncle : 

I shoiild inform you of an important change in my circumstances — 
Pity has obliged me to marry — but a consideration of the duty which I 
owe to my country made me choose a clandestine celebration, lest the father 
should insist upon my stay in this country as a condition of the marriage — 
the matter has proceeded too far to be longer concealed, and I have this 
morning disclosed the affair to Mr. Manning in plain terms — reserving to 
myself the right of fulfilling the more important engagements to my country. 
It may be convenient on some accounts that the matter should be kept 
secret till you hear next from me, & you will oblige me by keeping it so. ' 

" Pity has obliged me to marry. " That such a man should 
have had to write these words about one whom he should have 
shielded from every injury instead of injuring. But both were 
very young, and his honor as far as possible redeemed his fault. ^ 

So he was married in October, 1776, apparently, when he 
should have had the ceremony performed (as nearly as the let- 
ters at our command enable us to determine) in the first part of 
that year. In October he wrote to his father, whom the con- 
fusion of the times had prevented hearing from his children for 
nine months, that he hopes he will pardon him for making him 
a father-in-law without his permission, and that he may soon 
expect to be even a grandfather.^ 

'John Laurens to James Laurens, Oct. 25, 1776, in Laurens MSS. in 
L. I. Hist. Soc. 

» There are two technically possible interpretations: (i) Pity for the 
girl who had given him her honor obliged him to protect her by marriage; 
or (2) pity for her love-lorn state of mind obUged him to gratify her heart by 
marrying her before he sailed for America. His statement that "the matter 
has proceeded too far to be longer concealed" does not prove that he mar- 
ried her because she was pregnant; for the secrecy of the marriage was to 
prevent Mr. Manning's demanding as a condition that he stay in England. 
If the girl had already been pregnant, her father could not have insisted on 
any conditions whatever. 

The natural inference, however, from the words, " Pity has obliged me to 
marry," is strengthened by John's letter of Nov. 9, 1776, to his uncle: 
"With respect to my marriage, I must defer communicating the particulars 
so fuUy to you as my near relationship with & regard for you demand, till 
we meet. " (Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc.) 

3 John Laurens to H. Laurens, Oct. 26, 1776; H. Laurens to James 
Laurens, March 24, 1777. 



466 Life of Henry Laurens 

Nothing could be more groundless than the reflection on his 
wife's character and social standing contained in Perry's state- 
ment : " Honor was his ideal and to that ideal he sacrificed him- 
self in his youth by marrying a girl unworthy of him in Eng- 
land."^ Perry perhaps fell into this inference from a partial 
acquaintance with the circumstances related above. All the 
Laurenses were familiar and frequent guests at the house of 
Mr. Manning, Henry Laurens's long-time friend and business 
correspondent both before and after the Revolution. Something 
of the social standing of the Mannings may be gathered from 
the fact that Mr. Manning had a friend at court in the Bishop 
of Worcester, that he was able to obtain frequent permission 
from the ministers to visit Henry Laurens when a state prisoner 
in the Tower of London; that he assured son-in-law Laurens 
that he expected to leave each of his daughters £10,000 sterling ; 
that his son was Governor of the Bank of England in 1812-13 
and for thirty-six years a director of that institution and 
was for an equal period a Tory member of Parliament; 
that he was the grandfather of Cardinal Manning,* and that 

' Reminiscences and Sketches, 425. WilKam Gilmore Simms, who was 
better acquainted with the facts and indeed edited the Laurens MSS. in the 
L. I. Hist. Soc, speaks of "his premature, and, in a worldly sense, perhaps, 
imprudent marriage." — John Laurens's Army Correspondence, 21. 

^ Prof. Sumner in his Finances and Financier of the Revolution, i., 294, 
n. 3, confuses the father and son in saying that the former was a director of 
the Bank of England. 

WiUiam. Coventry Manning, for many years a West India merchant, and 
his wife Ehzabeth Ryan, of St. Kitts, had six children : WilKam (the Member 
of ParUament, Bank of England director and father of Cardinal Manning), 
Mary, Sarah (wife of Benjamin Vaughn), Elizabeth, Martha (nicknamed 
"Patty," John Laurens's wife), and John. It seems that the elder Man- 
ning, though christened William Coventry, did not make use of the second 
name, as I have only once found him alluded to other than as WUliam 
Manning, and up to the time of his death in 1791 his son is called William 
Manning, Jr., and afterwards Wilham Manning. — Letter of the Secretary 
of the Bank of England to D, D. Wallace, December 5, 1913; Dictionary 
of National Biography, first edition, Iviii., 158, and xxxvi., 62; W. L. 
Oliver's Carribeana (on the history, genealogy, etc., of the British West 
Indies). London, 1910-12, pages 240-1, as cited for the writer by the re- 
search bureau of Nelson's Loose Leaf Cyclopedia. 



Appendix I 467 

he refused to allow a daughter to marry Benjamin Vaughn 
(afterwards a man of some importance in the peace negotia- 
tions of 1782-3 and a political writer of note) because he had 
no profession, though he had been educated at Cambridge. 
Vaughn, like Jacob of old, determined to serve for his bride 
and accordingly studied medicine, got his wife, and was 
admitted to the firm of Manning & Sons. ' 

The following from the many references to his wife in 
John Laurens's letters to his father, gives a side-light altogether 
in harmony with everything else we know on the social 
standing of Miss Manning: "Lady WiUiam Campbell had 
paid my wife a visit. What was the end of that unexpected 
civility does not strike me. "* Lady Campbell's husband was 
the last royal governor of South Carolina. "Lord William 
Campbell was the third brother of the Duke of Argyle. He 
was no stranger in South Carolina. He had married Miss 
Sarah Izard, a young lady of one of the oldest and richest 
families in the province, and had just been with his wife on a 
visit to Charleston. 3 " Lady Campbell's visit would appear to 
have been a sincere civility in which she overlooked old feuds 
and harked back to older Charleston friendships, without 
any of the ulterior political significance which Laurens seems 
to have suspected. Independent of political motives, however, 
Laurens's surprise might have arisen from the fact that Mr. 
Izard, Lady Campbell's near relative — brother, I think it was 
— had seconded Grimk6 in his duel with Henry Laurens in 
October, 1775.'' 

John Laurens's relations with his wife's family were entirely 
happy, as is seen from his and Mr. Manning's letters to each 
other. Henry Laurens in forwarding to John three or four 
letters "from your wife" speaks of her as "the dear girl" and 
at another time as "my daughter" — an affectionate spirit 
which marks every reference to her which he makes. ^ His 

* Wharton, i., 646. 

' Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 168. 

3 McCrady, ii., 709. 

4 5. C. Hist. Mag., v., 129-30. 

s Henry to John Laurens, Sept. 30, 1777, and Mch. 22, 1778, etc. 



468 Life of Henry Laurens 

ardor to serve his country hurried Laurens from his new ties . 
All Henry Laurens's children were in Europe at the outbreak of 
the Revolution. After John's return to America he and his 
father both hoped soon to have their loved ones with them. 
The older man wrote his son, December 20, 1777, that he had 
"a project in my mind for bringing our whole families to 
Philadelphia or New York before the end of April " and thence 
inland. I As late as May, 1778, John was still seeking means 
of bringing his wife to America, ^ but his hope that she and their 
little girl might soon come to him was destined to be disap- 
pointed by the dangers of war and the unexpected protraction 
of the struggle ; and when little eight-year-old Frances Eleanor 
landed in Charleston in 1785 with her paternal aunts returning 
to their long deserted and so much changed native land, her 
gallant father had already followed her young mother to the 
grave,^ 

^ Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

'Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 166. 

3 The following verses are found on the lower half of a sheet in the 
John Laurens manuscripts in the Long Island Historical Society Library 
marked No. 150, which is a brief undated note from John Laurens to his 
father while President of Congress during the winter of 1777-8; judging 
from the context, I would place it in the early part of 1778: 

Celia, I sued with many a kind request 
For leave to paint her portrait on my breast 
She, sweetly Answered with a thought quite new 
If I must place it, I must paint it too 
Then turning rotmd, with a Celestial Air 
Look'd in my heart and left her like[ness] there 

Perhaps youthful literary pride prompted John to frame these verses 
for his father on a pleasantry between himself and some young fair; but 
at all events their significance is trivial; for if they had had any serious 
meaning he would not have shown them to his father. 

I might mention in this connection a story related to me by Mr. A. W. 
Standing, of Houston, Texas, a gentleman of keen interest in American 
history, who has collected much material on John Laurens, whom he ad- 
mires as one of the noblest of patriots. It was related to Mr. Standing by 
a lady cormected with the family of Miss Margaret Shippen, who married 
Benedict Arnold, that Laurens had been one of Miss Shippen's ardent ad- 
mirers. I cannot regard this tradition as anything but romance. Laurens 



Appendix I 469 

A touching incident it is in the friendship between the 
Laurenses and the Lees that Arthur Lee in Paris arranged to 
receive and transmit Mrs. John Laurens's letters to her 
husband. I When Henry Laurens sailed for Europe in Sep- 
tember, 1780, he carried letters from John to his wife.^ She 
appears to have gone to the continent to meet her husband 
when he was sent upon his mission to France in the spring of 
1 78 1, for she died in Lille in northern France, apparently in 
the late summer or early autumn of that year.^ She left 
a ' ' most lovely child " ^ of about four years . This little Fanny , 
naturally so dear to her grandfather Laurens, resided with him 
for some time in South Carolina after the Revolution. She 
married an Englishman, Mr. Henderson, whom she survived 

was married before he even joined the army or could have had any oppor- 
tunity of meeting Miss Shippen, and aside from this, it appears improb- 
able that he ever made her acquaintance Not to speak of the gulf that 
separated them as patriot and Tory, he was attached while in the North 
to Washington's staff and was rarely in Philadelphia during the few 
months which elapsed between its evacuation by the British and his own 
departtire for the South early in 1779. In April, 1779, Miss Shippen 
married Arnold. 

^ A. Lee to Henry Laurens, Apr. 4, 1778, in Life of Arthur Lee, ii., 141. 
Young Laurens received numbers of letters from his wife through his 
father; whether any directly I do not know. 

= H. Laurens to John Laurens from New Foundland, Sept. 14, 1780, in 
S. C. Hist. Mag. ; Laurens MSS. in L. I. Hist. Soc. 

3 In the Amer. Philosophical Soc. archives, Philadelphia, there is an 
undated letter from Mrs. John Laurens's brother-in-law, Benjamin Vaughn, 
to Franklin, endorsed, "Answered November 22, 1781." Vaughn's last 
letter to Franklin of which I know before that date was in July, 1781. In 
the November letter — for Franklin doubtless answered it promptly — 
Vaughn speaks of his (Vaughn's) long silence, and towards the close says: 

"Mrs. Laurens, wife to the Col., lately died at Lisle. (This is a spelling 
sometimes employed for Lille in French Flanders.) The effe(cts) she left 
are few and triffling, but the m(agis)trates of the place refuse hitherto to 
stiffer the operation of her will, tiU the Cols, pleasure is known. Her clothes 
she bequeathed to her maid, to the amount of some £20 or £30: & her 
watch & trinkets to a most lovely child, now in part an object of my cares. 
. . . The maid is now in Flanders. ..." (The omissions are entirely 
immaterial details.) 

* Vaughn's letter quoted in last note. 



470 Life of Henry Laurens 

without leaving any children. ^ Tragedy seems to have waited 
upon Laurens and his family and "the angel of the darker 
brink" was always close at hand. Their trials, like their 
characters, were of the most unusual kind, from small-pox- 
ridden infant Martha almost buried alive, to the smoke curling 
from her father's funeral pyre among the moss-bearded oaks 
upon the hill overlooking the Cooper. Incident after incident 
appeals to the imagination with pity and terror. 

We must return to trace the transformation of the student 
into the soldier. He had abandoned the study of law for 
military science and was chafing to set out immediately for 
America, but his father's command to complete his law 
course kept him dutifully in London — a command which his 
letters show each month's events made harder for him to obey. 
Dr. Ramsay is mistaken in saying he only waited until freed 
by arriving at twenty-one years of age to put his desire into 
effect. ^ His relations with his father were marked throughout 
his life with a beautiful confidence and affection which restrained 
him even in the face of his own ardent desire from such a 
flagrant violation of his wishes. And, too, his father's sense 
of parental authority was as strong as his love. After express- 
ing as positively as possible his wish that John should remain 
at his studies, he wrote to his brother, the boy's uncle, who 
was also then in England: 

"If these reflections prevail not over him, nothing will — he 
must have his own way and I must be content with the reflec- 
tion, that I had a son."' 

It was the same stem spirit when it came to matters of au« 
thority which had characterized Henry Laurens's own father; 
but the world would not have forgiven such a punishment to 
such a son for such a disobedience, especially as the father had 
two years before taught him the lesson of patriotism in the 
words: "If (compulsory measures by fleets and armies) 

^ Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 45-54; letter of Mr. Henry 
Rutledge Laurens to D. D. Wallace, Aug. 10, 1909. A son, the child of 
this marriage, died before his mother. * II., 496. 

3 Henry Laurens to James Laurens, summer of 1775. 



Appendix I 471 

should be recommended by Parliament, you and I had better 
be at Altamaha."^ As a matter of fact, John waited until 
almost twenty-two years old, when, in about October, 1776, 
he received with unbounded joy the longed-for permission.^ 
Had it not come, we can hardly doubt that he would soon 
have gone without it; for he had just written that he was 
determined to embark for Carolina unless the next vessel 
brought news of an accommodation being on foot.^ 

Two or three months after having received his father's con- 
sent (waiting, doubtless, to see his wife safely a mother), leav- 
ing his dear ones in England as he supposed for only a short 
time, Laurens went first to France, early in January, 1777. He 
was accompanied from England by a young friend from Phila- 
delphia returning home on the same patriotic impulse, John 
White. Both were to meet the same fate. White was taken 
first ; almost immediately after joining the army as an officer 
he was killed at Germantown.-* Laurens saw Franklin in 
Paris and took keen note of the situation in France. Hasten- 
ing to the southwards, they sailed on a French ship from 
Bordeaux. When two days out, off Cape Ortegal, the vessel 
was stopped and her papers searched by the British frigate 
Thetis. The English officers plainly recognized the youths as 
Americans, but took no further notice of them, they mean- 
while remaining silent and apprehensive. After a passage of 
fifty-two days from the mouth of the Garonne they reached 
Cape Francois (Cap Hatien) on the coast of Haiti, and after 
a sail thence of thirteen days, landed, April 15th, at the longed- 
for Charleston, s 



' Henry to John Laurens, Feb. 21, 1774. 

* John Laurens to his Uncle James Laurens, Oct. 24, 1776, in 5. C. Hist. 
Mag., X., 53. 

3 John Laurens to Francis Kinloch, Sept. 30, 1776, in Emmet Col,, N. Y. 
Pub. Lib. 

^ Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 23; S. C. and American 
General Gazette, Apr. 17, 1777, quoted in .S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 3, n; 
H. Laurens to John Laurens, Oct. 8, 1777, in ib., 4. 

5 John to James Laurens, Ap. 3, 1777, etc., in Laurens MSS. in L. I. 
Hist. Soc. 



472 Life of Henry Laurens 

Immediately joining the Continental forces, Laurens was 
soon transferred to the North. Here he was taken on to Wash- 
ington's staff, perhaps, as McCrady surmises, through the 
influence of his father. His splendid personal and military 
qualities soon endeared him to his chief, to whom he was 
devotedly attached. Washington employed him as his con- 
fidential messenger on important missions "which neither 
time nor propriety would suffer me to commit to paper."' 
At the time of the Conway cabal young Laurens did good ser- 
vice in revealing the movements of the conspirators to his 
father, at that time President of Congress, who in turn used 
every advantage of his position in foiling them. John Laurens 
fought a duel with Gen. Charles Lee in consequence of that 
miscreant's insolence towards Washington, in which Laurens 
was slightly and Lee severely wounded. His bearing so 
excited the admiration of his antagonist as to draw from him 
the exclamation that he could have hugged the boy — a famil- 
iarity which Laurens would hardly have permitted from that 
quarter. 

Mrs. Ravenel's statement in her Charleston, the Place and 
the People,^ that the British commissioners in 1778 spared 
no efforts to corrupt John Laurens, evidently arises from con- 
fusing him with his father, to whom, as President of Congress, 
they addressed letters, but not any corrupt offers. John 
Laurens's intimate correspondence during their stay in Amer- 
ica contains many references to them and the futility of their 
mission, but none to any tampering with him. He was 
acquainted with Dr. Ferguson, their secretary, from his Geneva 
days, and Gov. Johnstone sent him letters (of which he brought 
a number from England as a favor at a time when communica- 
tion was difficult), with a request for their delivery to their 
addressees. 3 

A strong friendship at once sprung up between the youths 
Laurens and Lafayette, the latter in his enthusiasm so far 
forgetting delicacy as to write to President Laurens that he 

» Washington's Works, v., 1 1. * P. 294. 

3 Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 183. 



Appendix I 473 

certainly did him a great kindness when he "got" that son. 
John Laurens served with distinguished gallantry in every 
battle in which Washington was engaged beginning with 
Brandywine, besides performing other service away from his 
chief. At the battle of Germantown, "Lieutenant Colonel 
John Laurens and Major Louis Fleury daringly attempted 
to fire the (Chew) house, but were unsuccessful."^ Laurens 
was severely wounded in the shoulder ; and in the same battle 
his friend White with whom he had come from England was 
killed.^ At the battle of Monmouth, in which Laurens took 
an active part, his horse was killed under him. 

It was during Laurens's service in Rhode Island in the sum- 
mer of 1778 that there arose the serious breach between the 
Americans and the French because of the refusal of the latter 
to cooperate effectively against the enemy. Laurens was the 
bearer of the protest of the American officers to the commander 
of the French fleet and exerted himself to heal the danger- 
ous misunderstanding. 3 In giving an account of the fight- 
ing in Rhode Island in August, 1778, Gen. Greene wrote to 
Washington : 

It is not in my power to do justice to Colonel Laurens, who acted both 
the general and the partisan. His command of regular troops was small, 
but he did everything possible to be done with their numbers. 4 

Congress, in recognition of his skill and gallantry, particu- 
larly in Rhode Island, voted him on November 5th following 
a lieutenant colonelcy, which he had the magnanimity to 
decline, as his promotion over older officers might injure the 
cause by producing dissatisfaction — a shining instance of 
disinterested patriotism among officers whom John Adams 
described as "scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts. " 

' Winsor, vi., 386. 

^ S. C. Hist. Mag., vi., 5, and Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 
197. 

3 Washington's Works, vi., 46, n. So hot was the indignation that when 
the French fleet arrived at Boston, to which port the commander had in- 
sisted on withdrawing to refit, a riot occurred between some of the sailors 
and townspeople. 

* Washington's Works, vi., 52. 



474 Life of Henry Laurens 

March 29th following, however, when he was about to repair to 
the defense of his native State, Congress again voted him the 
same rank, which he accepted.^ 

Where the fiercest fighting and greatest opportunity for 
service were, there was to be found Laurens. Operations 
having lulled in the North, he followed the tide of war to the 
South, where he took a prominent part in the fighting in South 
Carolina and Georgia. He went to the South in order that 
he might throw his service where most needed three separate 
times during the war: first in the spring of 1779, again about 
the beginning of 1780, and lastly after the conclusion of hostil- 
ities in the North at Yorktown. 

John Laurens's extraordinary zeal as a defender of America 
arose not only from instinctive patriotism and the natural 
resistance of men to policies opposed to their interests, but from 
motives more powerful when they take their hold upon enthu- 
siastic souls. His heart glowed at white heat with the love of 
freedom, and it was this reasoned and lofty principle that sent 
him with mad impetuosity and reckless daring into the most 
perilous posts on so many battle fields. When Hayne de- 
scribed him as "the Bayard of the South," he did him only 
partial justice; for to his knighthood "without fear and with- 
out reproach" was added the consecrated idealism of the 
crusader. How far the result of the influence of Geneva and 
how far of his father's liberal character and the spirit of the 
times, it would be impossible to say; but at all events young 
Laurens, though reared in the most loyal of provinces, devel- 
oped while in Switzerland into such an ardent republican and 
abolitionist that in his haste he was ready to curse his own 
country because she maintained African slavery. So warmly 
did he urge his views as to offend his fellow Carolina student 
Francis Kinloch, as, e. g., by declaring that "a monarchy was 
the nursery of human depravity. "^ 

^ Ramsay, ii., 497; Journals of Congress, xii., 1105; xiii., 388. Dec. 15, 
1779, Congress, at Laurens's request, cancelled his commission of March 
29, 1779, and issued him a new one bearing date Oct. 5, 1777. — Jours., xv,, 

1381. 

"John Laurens to Francis Kinloch, Sept. 30, 1776, in Emmet Col., 



Appendix I 475 

I think we did not use to agree in our political sentiments [he wrote his 
friend]. My turn was rather more repubKcan than yours when we used to 
converse together at Geneve, & unless you have changed, we are still at 
variance in our sentiments — but there is one thing I am persuaded from 
your humanity & love of justice you will grant me — I think that we Amer- 
icans at least in the Southern cols, cannot contend with a good grace for 
liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our slaves. How can we whose 
jealousy has been alarm'd more at the name of oppression than at the reality 
reconcile to our spirited assertions of the rights of mankind the galling 
abject slavery of our negroes? I could talk much with you, my dear friend, 
upon this subject, & I know your generous soul would despise & sacrifice 
interest to estabUsh the happiness of so large a part of the inhabitants 
of our soil, if, as some pretend, but I am persuaded thro' interest than from 
conviction, the culture of the ground with us cannot be carried on without 
African slaves. Let us fly it as a hateful' country and say ubi libertas i 
(paper torn in breaking seal) patria.^ 

It was at the time of his first journey South, in 1779, to 
aid his native State that Laurens hoped to see realized a scheme 
which he had for some time meditated of raising a black regi- 
ment. This and his views on slavery have already been 
narrated above in Chapter XXVII. of the Life of Henry 
Laurens, pp. 445 to 452 of which should be read at this point as 
an integral part of the life of John Laurens. 

John Laurens urged his plan in 1779 in the South Carolina 
Legislature, of which he was a member. His attendance upon 
the Assembly whenever possible was in keeping with the vital 
interest which he took in the political as well as the military 
aspects of the Revolution, As ardent as was his interest in 
military affairs, he was entirely free from the feeling of the 
mere soldier of fortune, but fought solely as a patriot and for 
an end worthy in itself. This is exemplified in his comment 
upon what he considered a dangerous usurpation by the 
Legislature of his State when in 1778 it took upon itself to 

N. Y. Pub. Lib. On the influence of Geneva in bending young minds 
toward Puritanism and political reform, see Stanhope and Gooch, Charles 
Third Earl Stanhope, Chap. I., and p. 20. 

' "Hateful" written over a word which begins with a d, seems to have 
traces of an w in the middle and ends with a d\ 

' John Laurens to Francis Kinloch, spring of 1776, in Emmet Collection, 
N. Y. Pub. Lib. 



476 Life of Henry Laurens 

adopt a new and more adequate Constitution. After the new 
document was drafted the members dispersed and sought to 
learn from association and consultation the views of their 
constitutents, and finding them favorable, they proceeded to 
put the new Constitution into effect. There was not the 
slightest plan for usurpation, whatever might be considered 
the tendency of such action. Young Laurens's views on the 
legal point as expressed in a letter to his father, May 12, 1778, 
were the same as those of John Rutledge, but he of course felt 
none of Rutledge's regret that the new Constitution closed 
the door of reconciliation with the mother country, and he 
particularly abhorred the aristocratic and oligarchic tendency 
inherent in the act : 

I heard by mere accident from General St. Clair that the legislative power 
had ventured to alter the Constitution of So. Carolina, that it is now degen- 
erated into an aristocracy. This has occasioned no less surprise than 
unhappiness in my mind. I should not have imagined that in a country 
where the people are generally enUghtened, and of an independent spirit, we 
should have suffered the depositaries of our constitution to usurp a power 
which is inherent only in the people, and to have corrupted what they 
were delegated to preserve. If this passes with impunity, the same men 
may next vote themselves perpetual representatives of the people. A few 
men of powerful influence may next have credit enough to take aU govern- 
ment into their own hands. To an oUgarchy succeeds a monarchy, limited 
by a few checks, which may be easily removed by an artful prince, and make 
way for despotism. It will be said that the confederate states, and the 
temper of the Carolinians themselves, would never suffer corruption to go 
such lengths; but I only observe that it is of the most fatal tendency to 
sufiEer fundamental principles to be violated, and that the measures taken 
by our present representatives are subversive of liberty. If your leisure 
wiU permit, I entreat to send me some account of these transactions, or 
perhaps I shall be able to get it from Mr. Drayton, who, I understand, is on 
his way to camp.== 

In the spring of 1779 Prevost was engaged in his invasion of 
South Carolina, which so nearly resulted in what occurred a 
year later, the capture of Charleston. Laurens took an active 
part in the campaign. At TuUifinny Hill he was entrusted with 
the duty of bringing off the rear guard of the army, but rashly 

' Army Corresponence 0} Col. John Laurens, 172-3. 



Appendix I 477 

crossed'the Coosawhatchie river without authority and brought 
on an engagement in which he suffered a sharp defeat and was so 
severely wounded as to have to rehnquish the command to Cap- 
tain Shubrick. But for Shubrick's prudence in conducting the 
retreat, the entire force under Laurens's command, one-fourth 
of Moultrie's army, would have been captured. The incident 
displayed Laurens's only fault as a soldier, as Washington 
expressed it, an intrepidity bordering on rashness. On this 
occasion it compelled Moultrie to retreat towards Charleston 
without further opposing the enemy. In the siege which 
followed Laurens is said to have threatened to run his sword 
through the first civilian who urged the surrender of the city 
against the advice of the Commander-in-Chief; but we must 
not believe all the wild things we hear. When it was proposed 
to surrender the city on very disadvantageous terms he refused 
to bear the message.' Prevost unexpectedly withdrew and 
was soon in turn besieged, September and October, in Savan- 
nah. In the plans to reduce Savannah Laurens's counsel was 
as discreet, though unfortunately not accepted, as his conduct 
at Coosawhatchie had been rash. I know of no support for 
the statement that he was the first to mount the redoubt in 
the unsuccessful attempt to storm the city. His duties on that 
occasion do not appear to have called for this achievement.* 

After the unsuccessful attack on Savannah by the Americans, 
Laurens went, late in 1779, to Washington's headquarters in 
the North to secure reinforcements for the war in the South, 
where the British were now concentrating their efforts in 
accordance with their plan of rolling up the confederacy from 
the south, or, we might say, clipping it away piece by piece. ^ 

December 7, 1779, he was at Morristown, December 17 
at Philadelphia, and January 27, 1780, he was back in South 
Carolina, where he took a very active part in the defense of the 
city of Charleston and became a prisoner when it fell. May 12, 
1780.3 He was soon released on parole, and we find him 

' McCrady, iii., 153-76. 

' Ibid., iii., 352-419; Ramsay, ii., 499. 

3 Washington's Works, vi., 415-6; Jas. Lovell to H. Laurens, Dec. 15, 
1779, in Laurens's Papers; John Laurens Papers, Nos. 134 and 136 in L. I. 



478 Life of Henry Laurens 

accompanying his father down the Delaware on his departure 
for Europe in August following. McCrady's statement' 
that Congress expedited his exchange in order to send him upon 
an important mission seems to be a mere inference, as Wash- 
ington expressed to his valued young friend the regret that his 
religiously observed practice of exchanging officers in strict 
order of their rank and date of capture prevented his liberat- 
ing him; and when, shortly before November 7th, he was 
exchanged, Washington spoke of his being free to go South 
again if he chose, without a hint of any special purpose for 
which he was destined.^ 

Laurens's nature was such that he could not be satisfied un- 
less in a position of real and arduous service. Nothing was 
more natural than that he should have declined the appointment , 
Sept. 29, 1779, as secretary of the legation at Paris. While 
such posts of pleasure, honor, and safety were being eagerly 
sought, his father exhibited a shining example of disinterested 
patriotism by his unwillingness for his son to accept, though he 
left it so completely to John's judgment as not to intimate his 
opinion until the young soldier had declared that his own sense 
of duty forbade. He might have accepted, John wrote, had 
the siege of Savannah succeeded, but he could not under the 
existing circumstances. ^ But when his military experience 
and knowledge could be of service, he was ready to go. Decem- 
ber II, 1780, he was unanimously elected as Special Minister 
for securing immediate aid from France. ■» Bancroft's refiec- 

Hist. Soc; Nathaniel Peabody to Henry Latirens, Dec. 17, 1779, in 
Stauffer Col., transcript in Carnegie Inst, for Letters from Members of 
Cont. Cong. 

' IV., 496. No authority is cited. 

' Washington's Works, vii., 256-7, 287-9. Congress did, however, 
July ID, 1780, perhaps through the influence of his father, who arrived in 
Philadelphia ten days before, resolve for his speedy exchange. — Jours., 
xvii., 598. 

3 Henry Laurens to R. H. Lee, Oct. 12, 1779, in Lee Papers in Amer. 
Philosophical Soc, Philadelphia; John to Henry Laurens, Oct. 22, 1779, 
No. 133 in John Laurens Papers in L. I. Hist. Soc; Journals of Cong., xv., 
1 128, 1366. In a letter his father states the date of the election as the 28th. 

t Secret Journals, ii., 357. The Pennsylvania Gazette of March 18, 1781, 



Appendix I 479 

tion that he was less fitted for the work than Hamilton appears 
to have no other ground than admiration for Hamilton's after 
achievements ; for neither Hamilton nor anyone else could have 
accomplished the ends of his mission more satisfactorily, not 
to mention the advantage Laurens enjoyed in the mastery of 
the French language. Laurens himself unsuccessfully urged 
the selection of his friend Hamilton as being "superiorly quali- 
fied in every respect. " Even on this occasion, which required 
the services of a soldier, he wrote out his declination, but left 
it unsent.' There appears to be no reason to accept the 
statement of Laurens's secretary on his mission, Capt. Wil- 
liam Jackson, written forty-one years later, that he was 
selected on the advice of Washington, except the circumstance 
that the election was unanimous. Washington's letters on 
the contrary indicate that he made no nomination. To the 
same effect is the evidence of Laurens's letters. He wrote : 

Your Excellency will be not a little surprised to learn, that Congress 
have been determined to send me to France, for the special purpose of 

as quoted by Wharton, i., 585, says that Hamilton "on the first ballot had 
as many votes as Colonel Laurens. " The Journal simply states that Lau. 
rens was unanimously elected. 

' S. C. Hist. Mag., i., 14 and 147. The editor, Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., 
says that, having learned that "about the end of 1779 or the beginning of 
1780 Col. Laurens was offered a cormnission as special envoy to Europe, 
but declined, " he is of the opinion that the intended resignation endorsed 
"Copy of a letter to Congress containing an intended Resignation from 
J. L. in December 1780 or January 1781 " refers to the former commission. 
The learned and usually accurate editor has fallen into an oversight here. 
The former appointment was not as envoy, but only as secretary of the 
legation at Paris, and was made September 29, 1779, more than a year pre- 
vious to this, and was declined in a letter of Dec. 6, 1779. {Jours., xv., 1128, 
1366.) John Laurens or his father, whichever made the endorsement, knew 
of course that it referred to his apointment as minister, December 11, 1780. 
But we are not dependent on this. Both the unsent declination and the 
acceptance which was actually sent state themselves to be in answer to 
the President's "letter of the 14th" ("Inst, "is added in the acceptance, and 
it is endorsed "December, 1780.") and they both contain the regret that 
a better qualified man had not been selected and state the writer's pre- 
ference for the field in almost identical words, indicating their contempora- 
neous composition. 



480 Life of Henry Laurens 

representing the present state of our affairs and soliciting the necessary 
succours. I was in great hopes, that Congress would have availed them- 
selves of the abilities of Colonel Hamilton for these important objects, and 
that I shotdd have been suffered to persevere in a line of duty, to which I 
feel myself more adequate. But, imfortunately for America, Colonel 
Hamilton was not sufficiently known to Congress to unite their suffrages in 
his favor, and I was assured that there remained no other alternative than 
the total failure of the business. Thus circumstanced, I was induced to 
submit, and renounce my plan of participating in the southern campaign.' 

Passing by the question of whether it is probable that 
Laurens would have been ignorant of Washington's having 
urged his selection, we may feel sure that if such had been the 
case, it would have been used among the arguments by which 
his friends sought to overcome his reluctance to accept. 

After overcoming numerous impediments, Laurens put 
to sea from Boston, Feb. 13, 1781, in the Alliance, under 
the famous Captain, afterwards Commodore, John Barry, ^ 
and landed at Lorient on the southern coast of Britanny, 
March 9th. Here he waited two days for the arrival of the 
Marquis de Castries, the Minister of Marine. Deciding not 
to delay longer, he set out ajid met the Marquis in a few miles 
and used the opportunity of urging the necessity of naval 
superiority in American waters. Passing through the historic 
country lying along the southern coast of Britann37-, the north- 
em vaUey of the Loire and the regions around Le Mans and 
Chartres, he arrived in Paris about the middle of March. ^ 

^ John Laurens to Washington, Dec. 23, 1780, in Washington's Works, 
vii., 341, n.; Secret Journals, ii., 357; Garden's Anecdotes, second series, 15. 
Care is necessary in judging Capt. Jackson's account of the mission in 
Garden's Anecdotes, as it was written in 1822, forty-one years after the 
events, and nothing is more common than for old men to confuse the details 
of long past events in which they had participated. E. g., Jackson gives 
the date of sailing as Feb. 9, instead of 13; the time of passage as twenty 
days, instead of twenty-five, and says that they pressed on to Paris without 
delay, whereas they waited two days at their port of landing for the arrival 
of Minister of Marine de Castries. For further considerations on the 
reliability of Captain Jackson's statement, see below, pp. 482-4, and notes. 

' Washington's Works, vii., 438, n.; Franklin's Works, viii., 370, n. 

3 Sparks, ix., 207. The statement by several writers that he arrived 
in Paris March 19th must be an inference from the fact that his first dis- 



Appendix I 481 

The English ministry sought to drive him from his mission 
by suggesting to his father, then a prisoner in the Tower of 
London, to have him withdraw from France in order to secure 
for his parent milder treatment. Henry Laurens scorned the 
proposal as incompatible both with his own and his son's 
character. Young Laurens sought both while in France and 
after returning to America to secure his father's release, 
but of course found every avenue closed. He gathered what 
news he could of his parent, and hearing that his funds were 
running low, he deposited £2400 to his credit in Nantes and 
requested Franklin to minister to his necessities.^ But he 
had the privilege of being again with his young wife and four- 
year-old child who came to the continent to meet him. Hardly 
had he set his foot again upon his native soil, where he hoped 
soon to bring them, when she lay dead in the foreign land to 
which she had gone for their last meeting, and in little more 
than another year he lay cold and stark upon the distant field. ^ 

The surmises of Simms and others of Laurens's being unwel- 
come to Franklin as implying in his very presence a sort of 
reflection appear to be groundless; thrown in doubtless by 
some narrator having too strong a taste for spice. Franklin 
even wrote to Laurens that, having asked of Congress to be 
relieved, he should be happy to see him his successor but for 
the fact that he could not be spared from the army. Laurens^ 
on his part urged Congress not to accept Franklin's resignation. 
Franklin, it is true, did not approve of Laurens's direct, almost 
threatening manner towards the ministers or his disregard 
of diplomatic forms; but of jealous or wounded feelings he 
revealed no symptoms. Though the young envoy offended 
by his impetuosity and insistence, and perhaps too by the 

patch from there is dated the 20th. Franklin speaks, March 17, of learning 
from Colonel Laurens that "Jones's arrival was not heard of at Boston the 
nth of February." May 14, he speaks of Laurens's having arrived after 
March 12. — Works, viii., 224, 252. 

' Receipt of Babut & Labouchfere, in S. C. Hist. Mag., ii., 36, 
' The facts at our command related above at p. 469 and n. 3, make it practi- 
cally certain that Mrs. Laurens with their child met her husband in France. 
3 Franklin's Works, viii., 260. 



4S2 Life of Henry Laurens 

exorbitance of his demands, we cannot doubt that he never- 
theless brought France to prompter action. Vergennes, the 
minister of foreign affairs, wrote to Lafayette : 

Mr. Laurens is not without zeal, but I confess that he has hardly man- 
ifested it in the manner required by his commission. We have taken no ex- 
ception at it, because we have attributed the conduct of Mr. Laurens merely 
to his inexperience in affairs. I think it necessary to speak of this oflSicer, 
because it is possible, that displeased at not having obtained all that he 
\ demanded, or rather exacted, namely, arms, clothing, ammunition, and 
' twenty-five rmlHons besides, he may be somewhat partial in the account he 
gives to his General; and I think it my duty to afford you the means 
of counteracting any prejudices, which he might receive from it. For 
the rest, Mr. Laurens has been well received by all the ministers of the 
King, and I beUeve that he wiU in this respect express himself perfectly 
satisfied. ' 

The French minister in America conversed with Laurens 
after his return to the United States on the manner in which 
he had pressed his mission and, if we are to accept his report, 
convinced him of his indiscretion: 

He appeared to be sensible of his mistake, and said he was a soldier, little 
acquainted with the usages of courts, but warmly attached to his coimtry; 
and that this sentiment may have led him beyond the bounds, which he 
ought to have prescribed for himself. He has suffered none of the com- 
plaints to escape him here, in which he indulged at Paris.* 

The extraordinary incidents related forty-one years after- 
wards by Capt. William Jackson, Laurens's secretary on his 
mission, appear to be touched, in a degree impossible to deter- 
mine, by an old man's imagination. While they contradict 
nothing which we have in the brief contemporary official 
accounts, they go so far beyond anything in them as to raise 
the suspicion that the aged narrator allowed himself to some 

I Vergennes to Lafayette, April 19, 1781, in Washington's Works, viii., 
526, Vergennes complained that " Notwithstanding the great efforts we are 
making for the United States, Mr. Laurens is not satisfied. This officer 
has treated me with great neglect since I announced the determination of his 
Majesty." 

' Luzerne to Vergennes, Sept. 25, 1781, ib., 527, n. 



Appendix I 483 

extent, doubtless unconsciously, the privilege of the historical 
romancer in impressing vividly his hero's energy and zeal.' 
Jackson relates that Laurens, having become impatient with 
six weeks of fair promises and no performance, and considering 
that the salvation of America depended not only upon French 
assistance, but upon its arrival within the next few months, 
determined to force matters to a conclusion. One morning 
early in May he called upon Vergennes and 

with his usual animation, was urging the necessity of compliance with his 
solicitations, when the Count de Vergennes, in a manner at once smiling 
and sarcastic, observed — "Colonel Laurens, you are so recently from the 
Head Quarters of the American Army, that you forget that you are no 
longer delivering the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, but that you are 
addressing the minister of a monarch, who has every disposition to favour 
your country." 

Colonel Laurens, rising from his chair with some emotion, stepped to the 
opposite side of the room, and returning to the Count, expressed himself 
in nearly the following words — "Favour, Sir! the respect which I owe my 
country will not admit the term — say that the aid is mutual, and I cheer^ 
fully subscribe to the obhgation — But, as the last argument which I shall 
use with your Excellency ; the sword which I now wear in defence of France 
as well as my own country, unless the succour I sohcit is immediately 
accorded, I may be compelled, to draw against France, as a British subject." 

Vergennes is reported to have replied, after recovering from 
his surprise, "Mais voil^ le bon Monsieur FrankUn, qui est 
tr^s content de nous. " 

Laurens replied that no one respected Franklin more than 
did he, but that his coming immediately from the American 
camp enabled him to know many things which had not come 

' McCrady, iv., 248, quoting a distortion of Jackson's words, by whom 
I do not know, says of the most extravagant passage that this, "however 
apocryphal, illustrates at least the energy with which Laurens acted." It 
should be remembered that Laurens's undiplomatic outburst regarding his 
perhaps having to draw his sword as a British subject against America's 
present ally unless adequate aid was forthcoming was, according to Jackson, 
in the midst of an argument with Vergennes, and not before the King as 
later writers represent. Mr. James Barnes in his entertaining account of 
Laurens's mission, entitled "The Man of the Hour," in McClure's Maga- 
zine for December, 1899, pp. 109-21, adopts aU Jackson's errors and orna- 
ments his narrative with inventions of his own. 



:i 



484 Life of Henry Laurens 

to Franklin's attention, and concluded with announcing that 
his next memorial should be presented to the King in person. 
With the words, "I have the honour to salute you respectfully," 
he left the room. 

Going to the levee, Jackson continues, Laurens, wheij pre- 
sented to the King, instead of passing on according to custom, 
stepped forward and presented his memorial. The King 
passed the paper to the Minister of War who placed it in his 
pocket and Laurens passed on without remark. ^ 

The next morning, says Jackson, Laurens received a note 
from Necker requesting an interview at noon, which resulted 
in his being given liberal supplies. At any rate we know that 
about this time his representations began to accomplish results, 
and for the next few weeks he was an extremely busy man. 
Six million livres had already been promised on Franklin's 
solicitations, and a large part of this was put at Laurens's dis- 
posal by the French government. The business of assembling 
and shipping supplies was pressed forward with remarkable ex- 
pedition. He sailed from Brest at the end of May and arrived 
in Boston August 25th, with 2,500,224 livres in cash and two 
cargoes of military supplies (and in addition a third shipload 
had preceded him), having been out of America for six months 
and twelve days, a large part of this time having been con- 
sumed in his long return voyage— an example of efficiency 
and dispatch worthy of Cassar or Stonewall Jackson.^ The 
time consumed on his return trip — almost three months — 
raised fears that he and his ships had been captured. He was 

^ It is fair to call attention to the fact that Vergennes complains to La- 
fayette of Laurens's impetuosity and that a little later, May lith, he wrote 
that Laurens "has treated me with great neglect since I announced to him 
the determination of his Majesty," as cited above. While this might 
possibly be interpreted in a way not to contradict Jackson's account, it 
might more consistently be interpreted to mean that Laurens had neglected 
Vergennes after the latter had announced the King's grant because he no 
longer needed the minister's services; for Jackson represents that Laurens's 
appeal to the King was due to the lack of any announcement of the royal 
determination by the minister. 

* Franklin's Works, viii., 276; Laurens to Franklin, May 28, 1781, in 
S. C. Hist. Mag., ii., 109-10. 



Appendix I 485 

driven out of his course by tempests and had to dodge about 
the sea to prevent being taken by the British. 

Laurens loaded four transports and got three of them 
promptly to America, but one was driven back by storms. 
On the French man-of-war upon which he sailed, La Resolue, 
he brought 2,500,224 livres, i8 sous. Part of the money was 
invested in bills of exchange in Boston to avoid the risk of 
transportation, and the balance was carried by oxcarts under 
heavy guard to Philadelphia, as the enemy, who held much of 
the intervening country, would make every effort to capture 
the rich prize. Crossing the Hudson at Newburgh, it arrived 
in Philadelphia November 6th. About half the sum, i. e., 
about $250,000, was used to establish the Bank of North 
America, just then struggling into being, which rendered 
such valuable service in raising the public credit. Private 
subscriptions barely equaled $50,000. Laurens's silver, spread 
abundantly before an astonished public so long unaccustomed 
to such a sight, restored confidence and immediately put the 
finances into a much-improved condition — a service of the 
most urgent need and utmost value. The other half was spent 
for pressing obligations. Some repaid debts incurred in the 
Yorktown campaign, though it is not correct to say that the 
campaign was waged on the funds and supplies which Laurens 
brought, as they arrived barely too late to be available for 
this. ' 

Laurens was fortunate in arriving in France shortly after 
Franklin had obtained the promise of a gift of 6,000,000 livres, 
besides 4,000,000 more for covering old bills, and he has some- 
times been erroneously credited with obtaining these sums.^ 
We may readily believe that the 6,000,000 livres were paid 
over more promptly on account of his exertions, and without 
any question, his expeditious assembly in France and prompt 
delivery in America of 2,289,109 livres' worth of supplies, and 

^ Oberholtzer's Morris, 102-7; Morris's correspondence in Sparks, 
August 28, Sept. 7, Oct. 19, 1781, etc.; Sumner, i., 308; Washing- 
ton's correspondence covering the period, particularly viii., 150, n., et 
passim. 

' Secret Journals, iii., 35. 



486 Life of Henry Laurens 

2,500,224 livres in cash at a time of critical need rendered his 
country a great service. ^ 

Of more value in the bringing of the war to a successful 
conclusion at Yorktown was his securing the prompt dispatch 
of naval reinforcements to America.^ In addition to this he 
obtained a loan of 10,000,000 livres, which was negotiated in 
Holland for the United States under France's guarantee. 
i Franklin gives Laurens full credit for this, though his biogra- 
pher Parton attributes it on general principles to Franklin. ^ 
Vergennes said that Laurens ought to be satisfied with the 
result of his mission, though not obtaining all that he sought.'* 
It therefore appears to me unjust to minimize its importance, 
as he obtained the prompt delivery in America of what had 
already been promised and obtained a new loan of 10,000,000 
livres, which, though it might have been secured by some one 
else, was as a matter of fact granted in response to his repre- 
sentations. The selection as Special Minister fell upon him as 
a military man of character, information, and talent, whose 
first-hand knowledge of conditions would be likely to bring 
prompt results, and the outcome seems to have justified the 
judgment displayed in his selection. 

Though Vergennes was at first offended by Laurens's impet- 
uosity and his passing him over in making direct application 
to the King, he was forced to admire his character and ability 
and wished to see him installed as executive secretary to Frank- 
lin ; for certainly there was no gainsaying his promptness and 
ability as an administrator. ^ Necker comphmented him when 

' 397,000 livres' worth of supplies were to be sent later as a part of 
Laurens's acquisitions. Franklin's Works, viii., 274-5; 289; 290-1; 
Luzerne's communications to Congress of Vergennes' correspondence, in 
Secret Journals, iii., 40-43. 

' John Adams to Livingston, Feb. 21, 1782, in Sparks, vi., 262, and Whar- 
ton, v., 196, gives Laurens full credit for this. 

3 Franklin's Works, viii., 276-7; Wharton's Diplomatic Correspondence, 
v., 515; Sumner, i., 300, and ii., 8 and 57; Parton's Franklin, ii., 391. 
The loan at first appeared impossible, and France agreed to advance the 
money herself; but it was finally borrowed in Holland, as related, on 
France's guarantee. — Winsor, vii., 72. 

< Sparks, ix., 15; Secret Jours., iii., 36-7. s'WTiarton, i., 585 



Appendix I 487 

he had had ample opportunity to judge' by saying, "I have 
recognized all the honesty of your character and the wisdom 
of your conduct" ("J'ai senti toute I'honn^tet^ de votre 
caract^re et la sagesse de votre conduite"). 

While Laurens was in Europe the unfortunate Captain (or 
Commodore) Alexander Gillon, of South Carolina, was involved 
in financial difficulties which prevented his putting to sea with 
the ship of supplies which he had purchased for his State. 
Laurens purchased £10,000 sterling worth of his goods, which 
Gillon faithfully delivered in Philadelphia, though, due to 
complications for which Laurens was not responsible, he never 
received the money. ^ 

The King gave Laurens on the completion of his mission a 
gold snuffbox ornamented with the royal portrait and set with 
brilliants (not diamonds, as commonly stated). Years after- 
wards the member of the family to whom it had fallen was 
forced to sell it. It was bought by an enthusiastic admirer of 
Laurens who outbid all others with the intention, she said, of 
restoring it to its owner — which, however, she omitted to do.' 

After reporting to Congress Laurens immediately joined 
Washington in the Yorktown campaign, the final naval ar- 
rangements making which possible he had urged so effec- 
tively while in France. He played a brilliant part in the siege, 
leading the successful turning of one of the redoubts captured 
from the British. "Laurens, " says Bancroft, "was one of the 
first to climb into the redoubt, making prisoner of Major 
Campbell, its commanding officer," and by his example in- 
spired the assailants commanded by his brother officers to 
their best efforts.'* He on the part of the Americans and the 
Viscount de Noailles on the part of the French were given the 
duty of negotiating the terms of surrender, in which position 
he enjoyed the opportunity of imposing upon the British the 
same terms which they had the year before forced upon him 

I May 16, 1781, S. C. Hist. Mag., ii., 38. 

' D. E. Huger Smith in 5. C. Hist. Mag., ix., 206 et seq., on "Commodore 
Gillon and the Frigate South Carolina"; Wharton, passim. 
3 Incident related to me by Mr. Henry Rutledge Latirens. 
* v., 520. 



488 Life of Henry Laurens 

and his fellow Americans at Charleston. A remarkable coin- 
cidence, which formed the subject of comment by Burke in 
Parliament, was the fact that as Captain General of Prisoners 
he held Lord Comwallis as a prisoner, while that nobleman, 
as Constable of the Tower of London, held Laurens's father 
as his prisoner. ^ 

South Carolina still lying largely in the hands of the British, 
Laurens repaired for the third time to his native State to join 
in expelling the enemy, the desire to do which a year before 
had come so near leading him to decline the mission to France. 
He attended as a member of the important " Jacksonborough 
Legislature" in January, 1782 — the first Legislature which 
could look upon itself with assurance as the governing body 
of an independent State — as he had attended as a member 
when South before, and again urged his scheme for raising 
negro troops. It received, he says, twice as many votes as 
in 1779, but failed.^ Declining all civil ofiice except that of a 
representative, he joined the forces opposing the enemy. A 
British expedition from Charleston was approaching the 
Combahee in search of rice for the garrison. Laurens, though 
ill in bed, determined to take part. He occupied at this time 
the responsible position, at a point near Wappoo creek, of 
guarding Greene's lines of secret communication with the city.^ 
Hearing of the expedition of the enemy, Laurens rose from his 
bed of fever, wrote a hurried note to Gen. Greene, and, in 
disregard of his orders and the important duties with which he 
had been charged — a practice which the loose discipline of the 
American forces rendered not unusual, — put off for the scene 
of action. After spending the evening in a delightful company 
of ladies at the plantation house of Mrs. Stock near the Com- 

^ Washington's Works, viii., 178, n., 184. 

' S. C. House Journals, MS.; McCrady and Ramsay; Washington's 
Works, viii., 323, n. 

3 The following account of the events leading to Laurens's death is based 
on McCrady, iv., 641-6; Washington's Works, viii., 357, n., quoting letter 
of Laurens's immediate superior, Gen. Gist, making his report to Gen, 
Greene, Aug. 27, 1782; MiUs'Atlas, map of CoUeton County ;Lossing's Field 
Book of the Revolution, and Colton's wall map of South Carolina, 1854. 



Appendix I 489 

bahee river, he turned from this happy scene only two hours 
before he was to march down the river with a small force to 
harass the enemy's retreat at a work which had been thrown 
up at the extreme southern end of Chehaw Neck, the command 
of which he had requested. But the enemy, having learned 
of his movements, with excellent judgment anticipated him. 
Near Tar Bluff, at the northern end, or opening, at the loop 
of the Combahee before it takes its final course to St. Helena 
Sound, they had concealed a force of a hundred and forty men 
in the tall grass. The point is about ten or eleven miles below 
Combahee Ferry and a mile or so above the work which was 
Laurens's objective point. Riding at the head of his fifty men, 
before the rising of the sun, the first intimation that he had of 
danger was when the enemy rose to fire. Retreat itself would 
have been perilous; to surrender was not his nature; an 
impetuous dash might shatter the enemy. Calling his men 
to follow, he dashed forward, only to fall at the first fire. His 
troops suffered severely. The whole movement was a failure, 
and one of the best and bravest officers in the army lay dead, 
a sacrifice in an obscure skirmish, the most complete success 
of which would have been immaterial. His was almost the 
last life to be given for the cause. 

Washington was deeply grieved at the loss of the young 
officer whom he so loved and valued. Writing three years 
afterwards to Gordon, he said, "No man possessed more of 
the amor patriae. In a word, he had not a fault, that I ever 
could discover, unless intrepidity bordering on rashness could 
come under that denomination ; and to this he was excited by 
the purest motives. " ^ John Adams declared that the country 
had lost its most promising character. Franklin had hoped 
that Laurens might succeed him at Paris as one than whom 
there was none better qualified.^ His unnecessary and, for 
anything save heroic example, useless death was a real blow 
to his country. He was truly one of the most admirable and 
attractive characters of the Revolution, deserving Robert Y. 

' Washington's Works, ix., loo. 

* Adams to Henry Laurens, Nov. 6, 1782; Franklin to John Laurens, 
May 17, 1781. 



490 Life of Henry Laurens 

Hayne's tribute of the Bayard of America, without fear and 
without reproach. Hamilton said that his heart realized the 
patriotism of which others talked. Like his hero Washington, 
he refused to receive pay for his services either as a soldier or 
a diplomat. It is evidently in answer to a provision of an in- 
come by his father that he writes to that dear friend : 

My heart overflows with gratitude for your kind letter of the 29th ulto. 
You grant me a privilege which I wished to have, but dared not soUicit. 
I shall serve my country with greater satisfaction, and regarding you as the 
source of aU my happiness and the author of every laudable action of which 
I am capable, answer your friendship with increasing love. I have drawn 
no pay, and wotild wish never to draw any, making to my country a pure 
offering of disinterested services.^ 

He considered (in the words of Robert Y. Hayne) "that in 
the hour of calamity, the life and fortune of the citizen is the 
property of his country, and that his services should be ren- 
dered gratuitously." After his death Congress paid to his 
infant daughter the sum to which his salary would have 
amounted.* 

Laurens's faculty of commanding the enthusiastic friend- 
ship of his associates was remarkable. The French officers 
particularly fairly idolized him. He was like his father in 
that even his enemies paid him their sincere respect. The 
Charleston Royal Gazette of September 7, 1782, contained 
the following comment on his death : 

By accounts from the country we learn, that Mr. John Laurens, a 
Lieutenant-Colonel in the rebel army, and son of Mr. Henry Laurens, now 
in London; was lately killed near Combahee river, in attempting to impede 
the operations of a detachment of his Majesty's troops. 

When we contemplate the character of this young gentleman, we have 
only to lament his great error on his outset in life, in espousing a public cause 
which was to be sustained by taking up arms against his Sovereign. Setting 
aside this single deviation from the path of rectitude, we know no one trait 
of his history which can tarnish his reputation as a man of honour, or affect 

^ John Laurens to Henry Laurens, June i, 1778, in 5. C. Hist. Mag., 
vi., 106. To the same effect, John Laurens to Henry Laurens, Oct. 23, 
1778, tb., no. 

^ Army Correspondence of Col, John Laurens, 49 et seq.; Journals o' 
Congress, 1784. 



Appendix I 491 

his character as a gentleman. His generosity of temper and Uberality of 
opinion, were as extensive as his abilities; as a soldier, he fought for glory, 
and as a citizen he pursued what he thought to be the interest of his country 
■ — He constantly condemned every oppressive measure adopted against the 
Loyalists, and always contended that a steady and disinterested adherence 
to political tenets, though in opposition to his own, ought to render their 
possessor an object of esteem rather than of persecution. His humanity 
can be no better illustrated than by mentioning what we are weU assured 
was the case, that he highly reprobated the refusal of Matthewes, the Rebel 
Governor, to the proposal from this garrison, respecting the purchase of a 
quantity of rice; on this generous principle that it was cruel to withhold 
from those persons whom the Assembly of the Province had banished, the 
provisions which were necessary for the support in a foreign country, of the 
slaves they were to carry with them. 

While we were thus marking the death of an enemy who was dangerous 
to our Cause from his abilities, we hope we shall stand excused for paying 
tribute at the same time to the moral excellencies of his character — Happy 
would it be for the distressed families of those persons who are to leave this 
garrison with his Majesty's troops that another Laurens could be found!* 

The combination of military talent, intellectual brilliancy 
and maturity of character which marked him hardly find a 
parallel among his associates save in his friend and fellow-officer 
on Washington's staff, Alexander Hamilton. If both these, 
remarkable youths had been spared, we have every reason to 
believe that Laurens also would have acquitted himself nobly 
in the constructive work of the next two decades. Quick in 
his mental operations, handsome, socially accomplished, 
highly educated, endowed with large wealth, eminent position 
and the prestige of a great father, he had the prospect of the 
career of a powerful leader. 

A splendid full-length life-size portrait (presented in 191 1) 
now hangs in the hall of the South Carolina House of Repre- 
sentatives. But more impressive is his almost unknown grave . 
He was buried first upon the Stock plantation upon which he 
fell; but his father moved the body to his home at Mepkin 
plantation, twenty-nine miles up the eastern bank of Cooper 
river from Charleston. The family graveyard, originally 
about twenty feet square, seems to have been enclosed on this 

^ Quoted in S. C. Hist. Mag., ii., 28-9. 



492 Life of Henry Laurens 

occasion. He was, it seems, the first to be laid there, close 
against the original southern wall. Beside him lie the ashes 
of his father — ^two dear friends, giving to this day the impres- 
sion of something gigantic by their graves ten feet two inches 
long. ' Next to the north wall lies Henry Laurens's youngest 
child, Mrs. Eleanor Laurens Pinckney, the young wife of the 
brilliant Gov. Charles Pinckney. Before the next grave — a 
grave of another generation — could be dug, twenty-seven years 
later, the yard had to be enlarged ; and as time went on, again 
its walls were expanded, each time with workmanship inferior 
to the last and each time with material inferior to the original, 
suggestive of the decay of the economic and social system to 
guard some of whose most brilliant and worthy representatives 
it was reared. How sad is the reflection that the once noble 
plantation, with its generous mansion standing in the midst of 
a beautifully kept park of about a hundred acres, has now 
become simply part of a great hunting preserve owned by 
Northern sportsmen. The old graveyard is retained by the 
family and is still a holy spot to the lover of his country. One 

' Lossing, after one of the best accounts of Laurens's death, based on the 
reports of the officers, says in a note (ii., 573): "He was buried upon the 
plantation of Mrs. Stock, in whose family he spent the evening previous to 
his death in cheerful conversation. A small inclosure, without a stone, 
marks his grave." Lossing was in South Carolina in January, 1849, 
visiting points of Revolutionary interest, but it is hardly to be supposed that 
he sought out the inaccessible spot where Col. Laurens fell. It is probable 
that Laurens's grave was surrounded by a plain enclosure, which may 
possibly have been standing in 1 849. But there can be no doubt that his father 
moved his body very early after 1782 to Mepkin. The three graves bearing 
date of 1782, 1792 and 1794 (John, Henry, and Eleanor Laurens) are within 
the original graveyard waU and completely occupy the space. Each of 
these graves is about ten feet long and has the same style of headstone, and 
the lettering on each is of the style common in the late i8th century, a style 
very different from that of the later graves. The differences in the other 
graves, beginning with the first addition in 1821, are as marked as the 
differences between the oaks and pines which surround them. Lossing 
evidently did not even know of Laurens's grave at Mepkin, and apparently 
based his remark about the original grave on someone else's statement — 
perhaps a statement contemporary with the making of the Stock plantation 
grave and its enclosure. 



Appendix I 493 

holds dear the little trees that spring from the graves for the 
dust from which they draw their life. The plain headstones 
are denied by the severe taste of their designer any reference 
to official place or title or manner of death, save for a slight 
exception in favor of John. At the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion the father reproved his impetuous son for speaking too 
hastily of its being sweet and fitting to die for one's country. 
But events had proved that it was no schoolboy vaporing and 
that if ever patriot had earned the right to use those words, it 
was John Laurens. The simplicity of the inscription is more 
eloquent than a great slab filled with eulogies : 

Sacred 

to the memory of 

John Laurens 

son of 

Henry and Eleanor 

Laurens 

Bom 28th October 1754 

Died 27th August 1782 

"Dulce et decorum est 

pro patria mori. " 

Thomas Day, the noted English author, wrote at the request 
of Henry Laurens, of whom he was an intense admirer, two 
inscriptions, one of which was intended to commemorate the 
spot where John Laurens fell; and a fitting service for the 
Daughters of the American Revolution would be to see that 
these lines are at last devoted to the use for which they were 
prepared : 

Beyond the rage of time or fortune's power, 
Remain, cold stone, remain and mark the hour 
When youthful Laurens yielded up his breath 
And sealed his country's liberties in death. 
For injured rights he fell and equal laws 
The noble victim of a noble cause. 
Oh ! may that country which he fought to save 
Shed sacred tears upon his early grave. 

Day prepared the following simpler inscription in prose as 
an alternative : 



494 Life of Henry Laurens 

Sacred to the Memory 
of Colonel John Laurens 
Who near this spot on the 27th of August, 1782, 
Was killed valiantly fighting for his country 
Against an unequal force of British Invaders. ' 

* Both Day's inscriptions are in Henry Laurens's MS. letter books. 



APPENDIX II. (TO CHAPTER XI) 

LAURENS ON CUSTOMS OFFICERS AND COURTS OF VICE- 
ADMIRALTY, 1769 

THE following entitled, "A Few General Observations on 
American Custom-house Officers and Courts of Vice- 
Admiralty, " is appended to Laurens's "Extracts from the 
Proceedings of the High Court of Vice-Admiralty in Charles - 
town," etc., 2d edition (Charlestown, 1769). A footnote tells 
us the "Observations" were previously published in Phila- 
delphia. It is one of the best pieces of composition which we 
have from Laurens and illustrates how the best colonial thinkers 
realized earlier than did English statesmen that England's ex- 
pansion into an empire demanded an adequate imperial policy. 



The appointment of officers whose business should be to 
inspect and superintend the conduct of the trading part of the 
community was very soon found expedient and necessary in 
every commercial state. Observation and experience left 
too little room to doubt, that some men, if at liberty to pursue 
their inclinations, preferring their own private gain to the 
public welfare, would prosecute schemes of trade inconsistent 
with the general good. Policy directs that some articles should 
be carefully preserved and retained within the country and that 
others should be entirely excluded, or admitted under peculiar 
circumstances and with great caution. Such, for instance, 
as afford materials for useful and advantageous manufactures 
and such as contribute to the cheap and convenient support of 
the industrious part of a society should by no means be ex- 

495 



496 Life of Henry Laurens 

ported, unless they are produced in superfluous quantities, 
which seldom can happen, as the plenty of materials and cheap- 
ness of living will induce greater nimibers to engage in manu- 
factures. Those articles, on the other hand, which tend to 
impoverish the community by promoting luxury, idleness, and 
debauchery, should be wholly prohibited from importation. 
Some states have, indeed, allowed such articles to be sparingly 
imported from a neighboring state or government, in order to 
vend greater quantities of their own commodities; but they 
have found the increase of idleness, and vice its concomitant, 
greatly to over-balance their profits. 

It was likewise discovered that it would be of very great 
public utility to have some articles in greater plenty than they 
could be produced in the country or produced in the ordinary 
course of trade ; for states and kingdoms are in this respect like 
the subjects of which they are composed; none is able to Uve 
conveniently without being beholden to his neighbor for some 
of his conveniences. To encourage the importation of such 
articles, it is necessary in many cases to offer a bounty to the 
importer. 

Further, trade can never flourish in any state whose mer- 
chants are not protected and secured from foreign insults. If 
a government is remiss and negligent in providing and main- 
taining a proper armament for their defense, foreigners will 
on many frivolous pretenses, seize and confiscate the mer- 
chant's property, which must soon put an end to his trade. 

These several purposes, of appointing and supporting officers, 
of paying bounties and defending and protecting the merchants, 
cannot be answered without a very great charge and expense 
to the government. It is therefore but just and reasonable 
the merchants should contribute a share of their profits for 
purposes so beneficial to themselves, as well as the rest of the 
community. 

The most fair, just, and impartial method of assessing such 
contribution is by laying a tax or impost upon such articles of 
commerce as would least affect the industrious manufacturer 
and afford the greatest profit to the merchant. 

From this view it appears consistent with the soundest 



Appendix II 497 



maxims of policy and the dictates of reason and justice that 
some duties should be laid on merchandise and rules and 
regulations established respecting commerce; that officers 
should be appointed to collect these duties and to enforce a 
due observance of those rules. 

Where the laws relating to trade pursue this plan and keep 
the original design and intention of their institution in view, 
and where men can be found to put them in execution who have 
sufficient resolution and probity to prefer the public good to 
their own private emolument, and to act up to the true 
meaning and spirit of such laws ; — under such favorable cir- 
cumstances, commerce must flourish and the community 
grow rich and happy. But be the laws ever so good and 
equitable, if bad men are employed as executive officers, who 
are avaricious, revengeful, and make their private gain the rule 
and measure of their conduct, under good laws, wrested and 
perverted by such men, trade must inevitably languish and 
decay; the spirit of industry and commerce must either sub- 
mit to them and in the end be entirely extinguished, or by 
a vigorous exertion of all its faculties such baneful harpies must 
be expelled. 

The mercantile part of the community may be compared to 
the human body ; officers of this stamp may be considered as 
the cause whereby navigation, the veins and arteries through 
which the vitals of commerce are conveyed, is clogged and 
oppressed. A fever naturally ensues. If the strength of the 
constitution should not be able to expel the morbffick matter 
and restore the blood to its free and unconstrained circulation, 
the assistance of some skillful physician should be called, who, 
by a proper application of medicine, may assist nature and 
remove the cause of the disorder. 

O America! how great would be thy happiness and the 
happiness of that Empire with which thou art so closely united 
in interest and affection could a physician be found of sufficient 
probity and wisdom to undertake a perfect and radical cure 
of those disorders under which thy trade at present languishes ! 

The laws relating to the customs in America are become so 

very numerous and intricate that it is a science which requires 
32 



49^ Life of Henry Laurens 

a great deal of time and application to comprehend them with 
any tolerable degree of clearness and perspicuity; and very 
few merchants have sufficient leisure to acquire a critical 
knowledge therein, although the conduct of the officers renders 
such a knowledge absolutely necessary to everyone who would 
secure his property from seizure: — So that while the fair 
trader is industriously endeavoring to comply with the laws 
and not to infringe them in the least iota, he finds himself 
taken in the snare of some intriguing officer. If he can stoop 
and submit to such a wretch, an handsome bribe may gain his 
clearance ; if not, he is put to the trouble and expense of pro- 
secution in the Court of Vice-Admiralty, where his property is 
at the disposal of a single judge, whom it is possible to suppose 
equally weak and corrupt ; for recent instances show that such 
have been entrusted in offices of great importance to the 
public weal. 

It is by no means intended to arraign the wisdom or good 
intentions of the compilers of the laws relating to navigation ; 
but this must be said there are some particulars therein which 
appear to an American hard and peculiarly grievous. 

An American thinks it hard he should be obliged to purchase 
almost all the articles he makes use of from Great Britain at 
an high price, and at the same time be prohibited from carrying 
his own produce to the most advantageous market; whereby 
the British merchant is enabled to set his own price, not only 
on British goods, but also on the produce of America. By this 
means the American pays a much greater tax than any person 
of equal fortune on the other side of the Atlantic, exclusive of 
the sums he is bound to contribute towards the support of the 
provincial government under which he resides. 

He esteems it an additional hardship that, super-added to 
the high price he is obliged to pay for British goods, he should 
be saddled with an heavy duty payable on many of them ; 
particularly at a time when, from the reason above-mentioned, 
of not being suffered to carry his own produce to the best mar- 
ket, he is not able to pay the first cost of them in Britain. 
And it is no small mortification to him, that the great sums 
thus exacted from him should be employed to enrich and 



Appendix II 499 

aggrandize a numerous tribe of greedy rapacious officers, many 
of whom he apprehends are useless ; and many others of them 
he knows are become contemptible, by their dirty, tricky, 
disingenuous behaviour. 

But he thinks it most peculiarly hard and grievous that the 
little share of property left him, after so many and so great 
deductions, should be rendered a precarious and uncertain 
possession. 

Were he sure that an honest, upright deportment, and peace- 
able, inoffensive behaviour would render him secure, he might 
perhaps sit down quietly and enjoy the pittance left him; but 
when he reflects, he trembles even for that pittance! When 
he reflects on the amazing accession of jurisdiction given to 
courts of admiralty and the numerous cases in which trials 
by jury are abolished, he is almost led to suspect that he 
places too great a value upon this boasted privilege, otherwise 
it would not so lightly be taken from him. He recurs to the 
history of his ancestors to know what were their sentiments 
of this flower of English liberty? He finds they esteemed it 
the Palladium of their constitution. He finds in every period 
of their history that they asserted it with great firmness, as 
their unalienable birthright; and, from his searches into his- 
tory, he is led to conclude, with a late sensible judicious author 
(Blackstone), 

That it is the most transcendant privilege which any subject can enjoy or 
wish for, that he cannot be affected either in his property, his liberty or his 
person, but by the unanimous consent of twelve of his neighbors and equals. 
A constitution that, I may venture to affirm, has, under Providence, 
secured the just liberties of this nation for a long succession of ages. And 
therefore a celebrated French writer, who concludes that because Rome, 
Sparta and Carthage, have lost their liberties, therefore those of England 
must perish, should have recollected that Rome, Sparta and Carthage 
were strangers to the trial by jury. It is therefore upon the whole 
(adds the same elegant writer in another place) a duty which every man 
owes to his country, his friends, his posterity and himself to maintain to 
the utmost of his power this valuable constitution in aU its rights, and to 
guard with the most jealous circumspection against the introduction of 
new and arbitrary methods of trial, which, under a variety of plausible 
pretenses, may in time imperceptibly undermine this best preservative of 
English liberty. 



500 Life of Henry Laurens 

Upon examination, he finds, on the other hand, that his 
ancestors were very cautious of admitting the jurisdiction of 
admiralty courts. The ancient law of England, both common 
and statute, confined it to things arising on the sea only, as 
is learnedly proved by the judges, in answer to the articles of 
complaint exhibited by the Lord Admiral to King James the 
First {Vide 4. Inst. 134) "And in case part of the cause of the 
action arose at land a,nd part at sea, the whole was determined 
in the courts of common law." 

He asks how causes relating to the revenue are decided in 
Great Britain? Whether they are given to the Admiral? He 
is answered, No. In Ireland? No. America is the only 
place where cognizance of such causes is given to the admiralty. 
And what has America done to be thus particularized, to be 
disfranchised and stript of so invaluable a privilege as the trial 
by jury? Are the liberties of an American less dear to him or 
of smaller consequence than those of any other subject of the 
British Empire? He would presume they are not. Have the 
Americans abused this privilege, or are they less capable of 
judging and determining with propriety in cases of property 
than the other inhabitants of the British Empire? It must 
be allowed even by their enemies that they are in general 
intelligent, honest men. What, therefore, can be the reason 
for dealing thus harshly with the inhabitants of America? 

However difficult the solution of this question may seem to 
be, he can easily foretell, and the prospect affords him the 
utmost concern, what will be the consequence of this deviation 
from what our ancestors looked upon as the bulwark of their 
liberties, and a fundamental principle of the British constitu- 
tion. Merchants will consider their property as precarious; 
being liable to be called into the Admiralty to claim it, where 
the whole decision of the cause, of however great importance, 
rests on the arbitrary will of one man: And from this con- 
sideration they will be induced to draw their effects out of 
trade as much as possible, and secure what they can. Those 
who have not already engaged in foreign commerce will con- 
sider this method of decision as an additional, if not the most 
considerable risque attending trade, and many of them will no 



Appendix II 501 

doubt be discouraged from the attempt, who might otherwise 
have become eminent merchants. The lands must of con- 
sequence be better settled. Necessity will oblige the colon- 
ists to pursue and extend agriculture and manufactures, and 
in time they will be able to live wholly independent of the 
mother country ; which will undoubtedly prove a fatal wound 
to her trade and influence. 

These are the sentiments of an American who glories in 
the British constitution and in being a member of the British 
Empire — whose heart bleeds to think that the interests of 
Great Britain and America should be separated in idea when 
they are in reality so closely united; and who would wish to 
preserve and perpetuate that Empire and that Constitution 
great and inviolate to latest times. 



APPENDIX III 

GENEALOGY OF THE LAURENS FAMILY, 1685-I792 

(See the two tables following) 

The dates in this table before March 25, 1752, except for Henry Laurens, 
are old style, as in original records. The table is made up from the records 
in the hands of the present head of the Laureins family, Mr. Henry Rutledge 
Laurens, from Henry Laurens's letters, the St. Philip's Parish Register as 
published by Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., also from the manuscript original of this 
register where not published, Baird's Huguenot Emigration to America, the 
records of the old French Church in New York published in the Collections 
of the Huguenot Society of America, the inscriptions in the old family 
graveyard at Mepkin, and a few notes by Mr. A. S. SaUey, Jr., when editor 
of the S. C. Historical and Genealogical Magazine in articles by him in that 
publication. 

The childish ages of the women at the time of marriage in many in- 
stances, the rapid birth rate, and the frightful infant mortality make tables 
like these valuable studies. 



502 



Auguste Grasset=Marie 
Came to N. Y. I 
about 1689: 
d. April 7, 1712. 



Andr6. b. in Rochelle; 

d. in Charleston shortly 

after 1715 or-16. Married 

in London Feb. 22, 1688, to 

Marie Lucas. 



?' I 

I. Hester (Esther) = Jean Samuel =2. Elizabeth Wicking 

bom 1700 I b. Mch. 30,1696 m. July 3, 1742 

m. in N. Y. appar- d. May 30, 1747 
ently 1715 or -16 
Buried Ap. 3, 1742 



Mary = Nathaniel 
1716 I Gi**""" 



Martha = Francis Bremar 



Elias Ball, the i 



She or a sister 
not known to me. 
ni. Egerton Leigh. 



Henry = Eleanor John 

b. March 6, I b. Ap. 10, Coming 



. July 6, d. May . 



For Henry Laurens's descendants, 
see next page. 



' The question mark iniierted he: 



Lydia : 

b. 1726 

d. before 



Auguste 
b. Oct. 1700, 

Appears to 
have d, 

Charleston 
about 1 748 



left 



Peter 
Laurens 
d. be- 
fore 



: Mar\' = 
d. 1785 
July 8 



Son 
(Was this Peter 
who m. John 
Laurens's daugh- 
ter Lydia in 1742 
and d. 1747?) 



Alex. Petrie=EIizabeth 



Broughton 
b. 1753. d. early. 

(Does register refer to this child in the following entry: 
"25 Aug. 1755, Laurens, child, buried." The following might refer either 
- James or Henry Laurens's child: "Ap. 10, 1760, was buried James Laurens, 



t is not certain that the person following is the s 



child." See note to 175; 
r daughter of the parents next above in the table, 



Henry Laurens = Eleanor Ball 



Eleanor Ann Elizabeth Henrv 
b. 175! b. 1752 b. 1753 

d. March d. May, 1752. Buried 



III ' 

(1757 See Elias Martha Henry^=Elua Rutlcdge 

note below b. 1758 b. Nov. 3, 1759 b. Aug. 25, '^ - - 

under this d. in d. June 10, 1811 I763. 

number.) or Was D. Kara- m. May 26, 

before say's 3d wife. 1792. 

1762. Had II d. May 27. 



children. 



1821 



Wm. Manning = Elizabeth Rya 



26. 1765; 
i- 1775. 



"2 weeks." 
Buried Sept. 
24. 1767- 



— Martha 


1 
Sarali 


1 
WiUiam 


1 
3 


d. 1781. 


m. Ben). 


1 


other 




Vaughn. 


Cardinal 
Manning. 


children 



mating Simons Laurens = Elizabeth Pvre Ashbv 
i. June 23, 1853, Kt. j ■ ' 

36 yrs. 7 months. 

Henry Rutledge Laurens, 
present head of the 



Robert Y. Hayne = Frances Henry 

m. Nov. 3, 1813 Henrietta Laurens 

^ I b. Sept. 

Daughter (Nothing is intended 24, 1794. 

here as to relative ages of d. Feb. 3, 

daughters). 1863. ' 



d. Aug. 
27. 1782. 

Henderson = Frances Eleanor 
Son, who left no issue. 
i-5-._I cannot reconcile with statements in the letters of Henrj' Laurens the statement to me of Mr. H. R. Laurens that Eleanor, whom I give as born in 1755, was bom in 1757. Laurens speaks 
(December, 1764) of "a dead eldest daughter" that year, and again the same year of the death of his "dear little improved girl Nelly." In 1 762 he speaks of ha\ing a girl of seven years of age. It is 
hard to believe that he had no child bom between 1755 and 1 758. It is possible that the confusion of dates has some connection with the Parish Register entries, "25 August, 1 755. Laurens, child, buried," 
and "April 10, 1760, was buried James Laurens, child." 



APPENDIX IV. (To Page 98.) 

THE CHEROKEE CESSION OF 1753, AND FORT PRINCE GEORGE 

BEING dissatisfied with the accounts of the Cherokee cession 
of 1753 and the location of Fort Prince George, I deter- 
mined, even though they were merely incidental to the life of 
Laurens, to examine the manuscripts in the State archives and 
visit the site of the fort itself. 

The statement at second hand by numbers of writers that 
Governor Glen acquired the area included in the present 
counties of Abbeville, Edgefield, Saluda, Laurens, Union, 
Spartanburg, Newberry, Fairfield, Richland, Chester, York, 
and Cherokee, i.e., about half the "up country, " appear to be 
entirely unwarranted. It would be unreasonable to suppose 
that the cession of 1753 conveyed any such area, in view of the 
fact that the treaty concluding the war of 1760-61 , in which the 
Cherokees were completely crushed (see above, page 102), 
granted as a new cession only this same area^ ; not to speak of 
the inconsistency that the area in question does not extend 
at any point up to the location of the fort of 1753, which is 
stated to have been the upper limit of the grant. But we are 
not left to such reasoning. Study of the deed of cession of 
November 24, 1753, and of the correspondence relating to it, 
supports the view that the Indians intended to cede nothing, 
and that Glen supposed himself to acquire nothing, except a 
liberal area for a fort, pastures, fields, and woods for the 
support of its garrison, and a road for access from the then 
conventionally recognized upper limit of the white settlements, 
Long Canes, in the present Abbeville County. Assumption 

^I. e., it granted to its western extremity. No line was mentioned 
as the previous western limit of white settlement. 

503 



504 Life of Henry Laurens 

by the whites in the following years to settle pretty much 
where they pleased in the Piedmont region was simply an 
expression of their usual determination to take good lands 
wherever found. Warping, misunderstanding, or disregarding 
the terms of the cession of 1753 would equally serve their 
purpose. 

For seven years previous to 1753 the Cherokees had been 
asking for a fort in their lower settlements (i.e., in the extreme 
northwestern comer of South Carolina) , for protection against 
their Indian enemies and for the better regulation of their 
trade. The Governor had repeatedly promised them the fort, 
but not until 1753 could he secure from the colonial Assembly 
a sufficient appropriation to justify him in building. ^ October 
14, 1753, he set out for the Cherokee country with a large 
retinue, and after being received with great ceremony by the 
Indians, piurchased from them a tract of " many thousand 
acres " for a fort and the support of its garrison. He pro- 
ceeded immediately to erect, in the fork of Keowee River and 
Crow Creek, a more pretentious work than was then usual on 
the frontier, which he called Fort Prince George. The deed 
of November 24, 1753, speaks of the fort as " at present build- 
ing," and calls it Prince George; and we know from the South 
Carolina Gazette of December 17, 1753, that Glen remained on 
the spot until " having seen that work fully compleated."^ 

Governor Glen describes the founding of his fort as follows ' : 

Soon after my last letter to your Lordships, ^ I arrived in the country of 
the Cherokees. ... I acquainted them that my business was to build a 
fort near the lower towns. [He proceeded to tell them that he had never 
promised to build a fort over the hiUs, but that he would report their request 
for one to the King.] That I might begin in a regular manner with this 
small fort, I desired to purchase a spot of ground for it, not barely what 
might be sufficient to contain it, but a tract where the warriors who were to 
garrison it might plant com and potatoes and what else they shotdd have 

' Glen to the Lords of Trade, in MS. Public Records of South Carolina, 
XXV., 348. 

* The Public Records for the next few months contain numbers of refer- 
ences to the fort as recently completed. 

3 Glen to the Lords of Trade, August 26, 1754, in MS. Public Records of 
South Carolina, xxvi., 106 et seq. 

* October 25, 1753. 



Appendix IV 505 

occasion for not to be burthensome to them,^ where they might have a 
range for horses, good pasturage for cattle and plenty of timber for fire 
wood and the other uses of the fort, and that there must be a road to it 
from the land that I last purchased from them, they told me that I might 
built where I pleased and welcome. . . . They crossed the river to the 
town house at Keowee where they had a great consultation and then came 
and sold me a tract, and went round it with me, I paid for it ... [in goods 
of] near £ioo sterling prime cost in Charles Town, the tract contains many 
thousand acres. . . . The headman who rode round (it) with me . . . 
gave me a handful (of earth) . . . and . . . some water in his hatt adding 
that I was now master of better water there than in Charles Town. 

The Governor then goes on to describe with some satisfac- 
tion the fort which he erected : 

I immediately laid out the Fort, having carried Instruments with me 
for that purpose it is a square with regular Bastions and four RaveHns it is 
near Two hundred foot from Salient Angle to Salient Angle and is made of 
Earth taken out of the Ditch, secured with fachines and well rammed with a 
banquet on the Inside for the men to stand upon when they fire over, the 
Ravelins are made of Posts of Lightwood which is very durable, they are 
ten foot in length sharp pointed three foot and a half in the grovmd. 

To the same effect, estabHshing both the fact that Glen 
built the fort in 1753, and that he called it Prince George, are 
the words of the deed of November 24, 1753: 

Whereas the headmen of the said Cherokee nation have for many 
years solicited the said Governor of the province aforesaid, to have a fort 
built in the Nation; and in order to induce him thereto, freely offered the 
land in any part of the said Nation he should choose to build upon. 

. . . they do offer to make a free donation of all the lands on the 
northeast side of Kewoee River, betwixt a creek known by the name of 
Mile Creek* and the river aforesaid, for that purpose. 

' I.e., the Indians, I take it. — D. D. W. 

2 Mile Creek is a small tributary entering the river about four miles above 
the former village of Old Pickens on the Keowee. Mills {Statistics of South 
Carolina, 676) , doubtless quoting the common tmderstanding, naturally fell 
into the error of saying that Six Mile Creek, Twelve Mile Creek, etc., were 
caUed so on account of being so distanced from Fort Prince George. The 
fact that the Indian deed of cession of 1753 speaks of the fort as be- 
ing tinder construction in the fork of the river and "a creek known by 
the name of Mile Creek" shows that the streams received their pecuHar 
names before the fort was built. Mile Creek (and so on with the others) 



5o6 Life of Henry Laurens 

But he the said Governor refusing to accept of the same by gift, and 
being desirous of purchasing it, Therefore, this present paper witnesseth 
that for [a quantity of valuable goods, the Indians have] granted, bargained, 
sold, aUenated and confirmed unto the said James Glen . . . not only the 
spot of ground upon which a fort is at present building, near Keowee, and 
aU the lands betwixt that and a place called Long Canes, of the width of 
said fort; but also aU the lands, as well com fields as pasture groimds, hills, 
woods and waters, all the right and title the Cherokee Nation can lay claim 
to in the said lands forever. 

In witness whereof, we have subscribed these presents by putting our 
marks and seals to the same in Fort Prince George, this 24th day of Novem- 
ber, in the year of our Lord 1753. ^ 

The definition of the proposed gift for the fort, i.e., "all the 
lands on the northeast side of Keowee River, betwixt a creek 
known by the name of Mile Creek and the River aforesaid," 
establishes conclusively the fact that the Indians intended and 
Glen expected only the site and surroundings for his fort ; and 
it suggests that somewhat the same boundaries were intended 
when the Indians, in the same document and without alluding to 
any other boundaries, put the transaction into the form of a sale 
for no other reason than Glen's "refusing to accept the same by 
gift, and being desirous of purchasing it. " It appears certain 
that it comprised only a liberal area for a fort and the support of 
its garrison. It could not have contained any extensive territory 
for settlement, for the Governor and Indians would not have 
ridden round such a territory, not to emphasize the fact that 
it was uniformly spoken of in Governor Glen's own words as 
for the support of the garrison of the fort and was to be of an 

is a mile below the famous Cherokee town of Keowee, and hence, we cannot 
doubt, was derived its name. When the town was later destroyed, the white 
settlers naturally inferred that the distance of the creeks from the fort had 
occasioned their names. 

^ MS. South Carolina Council Journal for 1752-3, being vol. xxi. The 
deed is found also in MS. Indian Book, No. 4, p. 83. It is printed in full in 
Logan, i., 495-7. The omissions which I have made are legal verbiage 
which in no wise change the sense. The deed is signed by a number of 
Indian head men, of whom the first three bore the impressive names of 
Corane the Raven of Toxawa, Canacaugh, the great Conjurer of Keowee, 
and Sinnawa the Hawk's Head Warrior of Toxawa. 



Appendix IV 507 

extent "not to be burthensome to them, " that is the Indians. 
A large acquisition would moreover probably have been spoken 
of in square miles and not in acres. It seems that no occasion 
ever arose for marking permanently the bounds of the cession 
of 1753. The war of 1776 soon swept the Indians out of all 
these lands. 

The situation of Fort Prince George as given in Mills' Atlas 
of 1825, making use of earlier surveys in addition to his own 
observations (how far the one and how far the other on the 
present point, I am unable to say), agrees perfectly with the 
situation pointed out to-day by the dwellers in the valley and 
the unbroken tradition of more than a century, so far as we can 
catch it, cropping out from time to time in written or printed 
form. The land is part of the farm of Mr. J. E. M. Steele, son 
of Captain Robert M. Steele, its former owner. Captain 
Steele, who was seventy-nine years of age when I talked with 
him, described the location of the fort in the fork of Crow 
Creek and Keowee River, and his son, Mr. J. E. M. Steele, 
aged forty-three, carried me to the exact spot. The fort was 
situated on an almost level bottom on the eastern side of the 
Keowee River, closed in by semi-mountainous hills, about half 
a mile, more or less, above the mouth of Crow Creek. ^ It is 
one or two hundred yards east of the river, and immediately 
to the south of the road leading across the iron bridge built 
over the river, I am told, in about 1903.* Slight lines of 

' Mills* Atlas of South Carolina makes it about three-quarters of a mile. 

' Several persons from a distance not exceeding a few miles who were on 
the spot with me pointed out a depression about two hundred yards to the 
north, under the impression, which is erroneous, that the fort was an ex- 
cavated area. These men cotdd give no further reason for indicating this 
position. Mr. Nimmons, a leading citizen of the community and a man of 
much intelligence who lives at the immediate site of the old Indian town of 
Keowee on the opposite bank, also pointed out the same spot as Mr. Steele. 
Either position is commanded by adjacent hills (though the presumably 
true one not so much as the other), the crest of one of which would appear 
to be better suited for a fortification. The ease of obtaining water and other 
necessities in the valley doubtless weighed with Governor Glen. Note in 
this connection that the situation was such as, when the fort was allowed to 
go to ruin, to be suitable for a trading house. — Bartram's Travels in North 
America, 330, speaking of its condition in 1776. 



5o8 Life of Henry Laurens 

elevation run in two directions, but not at right angles, across 
the field, which has been ciiltivated for upwards of sixty years, 
as we know from Mr. Hagood's letter below,* and probably 
for much longer. A Methuselah who had lived there in his 
youth might point to these and say, "I remember them as the 
remains of the old earth walls and ditches"; but no investi- 
gator of to-day could take them as proof without delving and 
cross ditching, and probably not with that. Indeed so soft is 
the loam and so long the period of cultivation that it is remark- 
able, if these slight elevations are really remains of the fort, 
that they are perceptible at all. 

The fort was allowed almost immediately to fall into dilapi- 
dation. Repaired during the disqmet preceding the war of 
1 760-1 , it was after that little needed. Bartram in 1 776 found 
that it "now bears no marks of a fortress, but serves for a 
trading house. "^ In 1858 a heavy gold ring bearing the date 
of 1758 was plowed up on the spot, according to the statement 
of a highly reliable gentleman, Mr. J. E. Hagood of Pickens, 
in a letter of September 23, 1891.2 As Mr. Steele and I stood 
upon the spot, he picked up a bit of clay pipe stem. In about 
1912 he picked up here a steel tomahawk and a cannon ball. 
I carefully measured the cannon ball as two and three-quarter 
inches in diameter, and the tomahawk as six and three-quarter 
inches from butt to edge, and the blade as two and three- 
quarter inches wide. There are iron or steel straps made as a 
part of it to run up the sides of the handle, with three rivets, 
two of which are still in place, though all trace of the handle is 
gone. Formerly there were found in the same area ntun- 
bers of bullets, some battered as with an impact, and some 
uninjured. Mr. E. F. Alexander, a prominent merchant of 
Pickens, fifteen miles away, and a gentleman of thorough 
reliability, states that "he was brought up near the old 
fort and has plowed over the old fort many times, and has 

^ Page 508. 

^ Bartram's Travels in North America, 330. Cf. Logan, i., 511-12. 
3 Landrutn's Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina, 
29, n. 



Appendix IV 509 

unearthed many bullets, etc. . . . The land is still in pos- 
session of the Steele family. "^ 

Opposite and a little below the fort, across the beautiful 

^Letter to D. D. Wallace, April 26, 1915, from Mr. D. W. Hiott, editor 
of the Pickens Sentinel. 

I was led at one time to believe that Governor Glen built two forts in 
the Keowee valley, one in November, 1753, and another in August, 1754. 
For convincing me of my mistake, I am under obligations to that relent- 
less foe to historical error and invaluable friend to careful investigation, 
Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., Secretary of the South Carolina Historical Com- 
mission. I first conceived the idea of a second fort from misreading a 
letter from Glen of August 15, 1754, to " Sir " (not improbably Sir Thomas 
Robinson, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, ha^ving super- 
vision of the colonies) as being to the Lords of Trade. In his letter of 
August 26, 1754, to the Lords of Trade, quoted above, Glen describes 
building a fort among the Cherokees "soon after my last letter to your 
Lordships." But his last letter to them was not August 15, 1754, but 
October 25, 1753; and hence his description of August 26, 1754, is of the 
fort built in November, 1753. 

Having conceived the error, other circumstances confirmed me in it. 
The deed of November 24, 1753, speaks of the Indians' having previously 
offered the Governor land in the fork of Mile Creek and Keowee River for 
the fort, of his refusing it as a gift, and of his purchasing land and build- 
ing a fort which was at that moment in construction. As strong as is the 
suggestion that the land bought was the same as that offered in the fork 
of Mile Creek, yet it is to be noted, as Mr. Salley remarks, that the deed 
does not state that the fort was in the fork of Mile Creek, or even that 
the land purchased was the same as that offered as a gift. It is not im- 
possible that the deed in granting "all the lands on the northeast side of 
Keowee River betwixt a creek known by the name of Mile Creek and the 
river aforesaid," may have intended to include the fork of Crow Creek, 
where the fort was actually btdlt, a mile or more up the river from Mile 
Creek. 

Mr. Salley has been at the pains of searching the South Carolina Gazette 
for the period and finds that Governor Glen was not absent from Charleston 
between December 17, 1753, to August 26, 1754, for a length of time suflB- 
cient for him to have visited again the Cherokee country; and more directly 
to the point, he finds that the Gazette of Monday, December 17, 1753, in 
recording the return of the Governor on Tuesday last after an absence of 
two months, states " that this fort . . . is . . . situated on Keowee River, 
opposite to, and within Musket-shot of Keowee Town," thus proving that 
the fort of 1753 was built in the fork of Crow Creek, and not, as I had 
supposed, a mile below in the fork of Mile Creek. 



510 Life of Henry Laurens 

crystal Keowee River, as it flows swiftly out from its mountains, 
now laughing over shallows, now so smooth and deep that a 
man may swim in it — but not swim very much upstream, as I 
can testify from experience, — ^is the site of the important 
Cherokee town of Keowee. It was on a natural platform 
raised a few feet above the level plain through which the river 
flows here, and about an eighth of a mile below the fort ; within 
gunshot, the Gazette expressed it. Here many Indian relics 
have been found. 

With Governor Glen I can praise the rich black soil; with 
the Indian chief I can testify to the unsurpassed water, and 
with Bartram and every other lover of nature I can join in 
raptures over the lovely Vale of Keowee, the memory of which 
is a perpetual delight. 



The Cherokee Treaty of 1730. — In the MS. South Carolina 
Public Records, xiv., 276, is a copy of a letter of September 
30, 1730 (copied from the British Public Record Office, B. T., 
xxvi., 2), from an official in London, where the treaty was 
made, to the Duke of Newcastle stating that the Cherokee 
treaty is transmitted therewith ; but it does not appear in the 
South Carolina Public Records. To search for it in London is a 
task for the future historian of our Indian relations. 



The Cherokee war of 1 760-1. — Avery's History of the United 
States, IV., chapter xviii., contains an excellent account of 
the Cherokee war of 1 760-1, with a good, small map of the 
whole region from Charleston to Ft. Loudon, by the author, 
and a valuable contemporary map of the Ft. Loudon and 
Little Tennessee River region by Lieutenant Henry Timber- 
lake, who is quoted above in the present work at page 103 and 
n. I. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY^ 

Annual Register, London, 1759-. 

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Bancroft, George. — History of the United States. Author's last revision. 
6 vols. New York, 1907. 

Beer, G. L. — Commercial Policy of England towards the American Colonies. 
Columbia University Studies, III., No. 2. ^ 

Benjamin, Walter R. — Henry Laurens in Mag. of Amer. Hist., vol. 
XXV, June, 1891. 

Burnett, Edmund C. — See Carnegie Institution. 

Carnegie Institution of Washington. — MSS. and papers for the forthcoming 
publication of the Bureau of Historical Research of the Carnegie 
Institution, Washington, "Letters of Delegates in the Continental 
Congress, " Prof. Edmund C. Burnett, editor. 

Carroll, B. R. — Historical Collections of South Carolina. 2 vols. New 
York, 1836. 

Clark, G. L. — Silas Deane. New York, 191 3. 

Cyclopedia of American Biography. 12 vols, so far. New York, 1 898-. 

Deane, Charles. — Report on Burgoyne's Surrender and the Suspension 
of the Convention of Saratoga. In Proceedings of the American 
Antiquarian Society for Oct., 1877, PP- 12-70. 

Deane, Silas. — Deane Papers. Published in 5 vols, in New York Histor- 
ical Soc. Collections, 1886-90. 

Paris Papers, or Mr. Silas Deane's late intercepted letters. New 

York, 1782. 

Drayton, John. — Memoirs of the American Revolution. 2 vols. Charles- 
ton, 1 82 1. 

'A number of short sketches of Laurens are so slight or unreliable that 
I have not included them in the bibliography. A number of works to 
which only occasional reference is made are also omitted from this list. 
The place and date of publication is omitted in some cases because the 
work is so well known or has passed through many editions; in others 
because I neglected to note these points at the time with certain books lent 
me or which I consulted in other cities. 

511 



512 Life of Henry Laurens 

DuBois, W. E. B. — Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United 

States. Harvard Historical Studies, I. New York, 1904. 
DuYCKiNCK, E. A. — National portrait gallery of eminent Americans. 

Article on Henry Laurens. 
Farrand, Max. — The Indian Boundary Line. With map. American 

Historical Review, x., 782-91. 
FiSKE, John. — American Revolution. 2 vols. 
Force, Peter. — Henry Laurens in England. Historical Mag., xi., 129. 

March, 1867. 
Ford, W. C, editor. See below under U. S. Government, Journals of 

Continental Congress. 
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York, 1900. 
Friedenwald, H. — The Continental Congress. Annual Report American 

Historical Association, 1894, 227-36. 
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Constitutional History of the United States, lyy^-Sg, J. F. Jameson, 

editor. Boston and New York, 1889. 
Journals and Papers of the Continental Congress. Annual Report 

American Historical Asso., 1896, i., 83. 
Franklin, Benjamin. — Worhs. 10 vols. Edited by A. H. Smyth. 

New York, 1907. 
French, Benjamin. — Henry Laurens, in Biographia Americana. New 

York, 1825. 
Howell, T. B. — Complete Collection of State Trials. London, 1814. 

Referred to as State Trials. 
Huguenot Society of America. — Collections. 
Hunt, Freeman. — Henry Laurens, in Lives of American Merchants. 

New York, 1858. 
Ingraham, E. D. — Papers in relation to the case of Silas Deane. Phil- 
adelphia, 1855. 
IsHAM, Charles. — A short account of the life and times of Silas Deane. In 

American Hist. Asso. Papers, v., 3; 40-7. New York, 1888. 
Jackson, H. R. — The Wanderer Case. Franklin Printing and Publishing 

Co., Atlanta, Ga. (An address delivered Nov. 13, 1891.) 
Jenings, Edmunt). — The Candor of Henry Laurens, Esq., Manifested by 

his Behavior towards Mr. Edmund Jenings. 1783. 
A Full Manifestation of what Mr. Laurens Falsely Denominates Candor 

in himself, and Tricks in Mr. Jenings. London, 1783. 
Johnson, Joseph. — Traditions and Reminiscences of the American Revolu- 
tion. Charleston, 1851. 
Lamb, Martha. — Henry Laurens in the London Tower. In Magazine of 

American Hist., vol. xviii., 1-12. 
Laurens, Henry. — An Appendix to the Extracts front the Proceedings of 

the High Court of Vice-Admiralty in Charlestown, South Carolina, &c. 



Bibliography 513 

Containing strictures upon, and proper answers to, a pamphlet entitled, 

The Man Unmask' d, published by Egerton Leigh, etc. Charlestown : 

Printed by David Bruce. MDCCLXIX.^ 
Correspondence of Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, 1776-82. 

Printed for the Zenger Club. New York, 1861. F. Moore, editor; in 

Materials for History, printed from original manuscripts. First series. 
Extracts from the Proceedings of the High Court of Vice-Admiralty 

in Charlestown, in 1767 and 1768. 2d edition. — Charlestown: Printed 

by David Bruce. MDCCLXIX. 
Laurens MSS. Letter books, account books, original letters, notes 

and miscellaneous manuscripts, 1747-92, known as "The Laurens 

Papers, " ia the S. C. Historical Society archives, Charleston, S. C. 

All references to Laurens's letters or papers not otherwise specified 

are to this collection.' 
Laurens MSS. Laurens's letter book, Oct. 30, 1762-Sept. 10, 1766. 

Letters to persons in America only. Historical Society of Penn. Cols. 

Laurens MSS. Miscellaneous papers, in same. 

Laurens MSS. Letter books as President of Congress. In Library 

of Congress. 

Laurens MSS. Miscellaneous papers, in same. 

Laurens MSS. Laurens papers in Long Island Historical Society 

Collections. I took no count, but there must be considerably over a 

thousand pages. The collection is labeled, "Memoir of the Life of 

Hon. Henry Laurens with original correspondence now first collected 

and edited by W. Gilmore Simms. 1849." No memoir appears, 

however. 
Laurens MSS. Miscellaneous papers in the Emmet and other 

collections in the New York PubHc Library. 
Mr. Laurens's true state of the case, by which his candor to Mr. Edmund 

Jenings is manifested, and the tricks of Mr. Jenings detected. Bath, 

1783. 
A narrative of the capture of Jfenry Laurens, of his confinement in the 

Tower of London, etc. In Collections of the S. C. Historical Society, vol. 

i., 18-68. Charleston, 1857. 
A South Carolina protest against slavery; letter from Henry Laurens 

to his son, Col. John Laurens, August 14, 1776. New York, 1861. 

' The only copy of this rare pamphlet which I have located is one 
presented by Laurens to Thomas Shute and by him to Nicholl HeUegas 
(or HiUegas) and now in the hbrary of the American Philosophical Society, 
Philadelphia. Leigh's pamphlet I found in the Congressional Library 
and the Charleston Library Society, and Laurens's opening pamphlet in 
the controversy in the Charleston Library Society. 

* The letter books are hand copied. Though occasional errors of copy- 
ing are in evidence, the work is done with care and general accuracy. 



514 I-ife of Henry Laurens 



Laurens, John. — Army Correspondence of Col. John Laurens, 1777-8. 

Printed from original MSS. for the Bradford Club. With a Memoir 

by William Gilmore Simms. New York, MDCCCLXVII. 
Lecky, W. E. H. — History of England in the Eighteenth Century. 7 vols. 

New York, 1903. 
Leigh, Egerton. — The Man Unmasked, etc. — Charles-Town. 1769. 
Logan, J. H. — History of Upper South Carolina. Vol. i. Columbia, 1859. 
Lowell, E. J. — The Hessians and other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain 

in the Revolutionary War. New York, 1884. 
McCrady, Edward. — Slavery in the Province of South Carolina, 1670- 

1770. In Annual Rept. Amer. Hist. Asso., 1895, 631-73. Also 

printed separately from the same type as pamphlet. 
South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719. New 

York, 1897. Referred to as McCrady, i. 
South Carolina under the Royal Government, 1719-1776. New York, 

1899. Referred to as McCrady, ii. 
South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-80. New York, 1901. 

Referred to as McCrady, iii. 
South Carolina in the Revolution, 1780-3. New York, 1902. Re- 
ferred to as McCrady, iv. 
Madison, James. — Madison Papers. 3 vols. Washington, 1840. 
Magazine of Amer. Hist., vols, xii., xiii., xviii. 

MiCKLEY, J. J. — Henry Laurens vs. Charles Thompson, In Potter's Am- 
erican Monthly, vi., 172-5, and 264-9; March and April, 1876. 
Moore, F., editor. — See above under Laurens, Henry, second entry. 
NouveUe Biographic G6n6rale. — Article by Dr. Hubert Rodrigues on 

Andre DuLaurens. Firmin Didot Freres, Paris, 1858. 
Oberholtzer, E. P. — Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier. New York, 

1903. 
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Perry, B. F. — Biographical Sketches of Eminent American Statesmen. 

Philadelphia, 1887. 
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of America Industrial Society, volumes i. and ii. Cleveland, O., 

1909. 
The South Carolina Federalists. In American Historical Review, 

xiv., 529, 731, 776. April and July, 1909. 
Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military and Literary 

Journal. London, 1780. 
Porcher, F. a. — History of the Santee Canal. 1875. (Published by 

S. C. Hist. Soc, Charleston, S. C, 1903. Pamphlet.) 
Portfolio, The. Vol. xii (Sept., 1814), 237-52. Philadelphia. 
Ramsay, David. — History of South Carolina to 1808. 2 vols. Charleston. 

1809. 
Memoirs of the Life of Martha Laurens Ramsay. Philadelphia, 1811. 



Bibliography 515 

Ravenel, Mrs. H. H. — Charleston: The Place and the People. New York, 

1906. 
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1758. Charleston, 1904. 
Sedgwick, Theodore, Jr. — Memoir of the Life of William Livingston. 

New York, 1833. 
SiMMS, William Gelmore. — History of South Carolina. New York, i860. 
Sketch of John Laurens, in Army Correspondence of Col. John 

Laurens, referred to above under title, John Laurens. See also under 

Laurens, H. — Laurens MSS., in Long Island Hist. Soc. Collections. 
Smith, W. Roy. — South Carolina as a Royal Province. New York, 1903. 

Referred to as Smith. 
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vols. 
South Carolina Historical Society. — Collections, vols, i.-iii. Charleston, 

1857-9- 
Sparks, Jared, editor. — Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revo- 
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See also below, Washington, George. 

State Trials. — See above, Howell, T. B. 

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to America, 1773-1783. 25 vols. 
Story, William W. — Life and Letters of Joseph Story. Boston, 1851. 
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2 vols. New York, 1892. 
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edition, 1908, New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta. 
Tyler, M. C. — Literary History of the American Revolution. 2 vols. 

New York, 1905. 
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complete in about 25 vols. Washington, 1904-. 

Secret Journals of the Continental Congress. 4 vols. Boston, 1821. 

Wallace, D. D. — Constitutional History of South Carolina, 1725-75. 

Abbeville, S. C, 1899. Referred to as Wallace. 
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1834-7. 
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Revolution. 6 vols. Washington, 1889. 
Winsor, Justin. — Narrative and Critical History of America. 



INDEX 



Abbeville County, 503 

Abolitionists, agitation checks em- 
ancipation sentiment, 456 

Adams, Governor James H., urges 
reopening of foreign slave trade, 
92, n. 4 

Adams, John, befriends Laurens in 
Tower, 384; misrepresented by 
Digges; meeting with Laurens 
in Haarlem; opinion of Laurens, 
229, 233, 392, 402, 403; shows 
Laurens Marbois' intercepted let- 
ter, 407-8; Laurens's opinion of, 
287; opinion of John Laurens, 
489; attitude towards French 
court, 407-8; relations with Jen- 
ings, 417; criticizes Washington, 
265, 271; mentioned, 228, 348, 
349, 362, n. I; 401, n. 

Adams, S., friendship with Laurens, 
229; criticizes Washington, 265; 
applies to Gerard for information 
regarding Arthur Lee; his misuse 
of information exposed by Dray- 
ton and Paca, 321; mentioned, 
234, 260, 288, 302, 407 

Addison, Benjamin, 12 

Addison, Justice, 365 

"Additional Instruction of April 
14, 1770," 166 

Admiralty Court, commends Lau- 
rens, 55; Laurens's trouble with 
Court of Vice-Admiralty, 137 
et seq. ; Laurens's paper on, 495- 

501 

Agriculture, 47 ; expansion in middle 
of eighteenth century, 74; pro- 
ducts in South Carolina and 
Georgia, 130 et seq., 428 

Alexander, William, called Earl of 
Stirling, Lord Stirling, and Gen- 
eral Stirling, 267 



Allen, William, 145 

Alliance (ship), 480 

Altamaha River, Laurens planta- 
tions on, 130 

Amherst, Gen. Jeffrey (Baron Am- 
herst), sends troops to South 
Carolina against Cherokees, loi; 
mentioned, 295 

Anderson, Alexander, 388 

Angola (Africa), qualities of slaves 
from, 76 

Ann, Laurens's ship, seized, 142 

Anson, Admiral Lord George, 30-1 

Ansonboro, won at gambling, 30; 
settlement of, 33, 62 

Antigua, Mrs. Gittens sought in, 10 ; 
mentioned, 28 

Appendix to Extracts from Proceed- 
ings of Court of Vice- Admiralty, 
published, 146 

Appleby, George, partnership with 
Henry Laurens, 45, 70 

Argyle, Duke of, 467 

Aristocracy, American, 7; Virginia, 
8; South Carolina, 8, 441, n. 2; 
Laurens's attitude towards, 293 

"Armed Neutrality of the North," 
360-1, 361, n. I 

Army, dissatisfaction in, 291-5 

Arnold, Benedict, Laurens's at- 
titude towards, 266, 365 

Articles of Confederation, debates 
on, 232 et seq. 

Ashley River, estates along, 28 

Aspinwall, Thomas, 374, n. 

"Association" of 1774 in South 
Carolina, 206 et seq. See also 
Non-importation. 

Austin, Mr., genealogy ff. p. 502. 
I have made no enquiry as to 
whether this is George Austin. 

Austin, George, partnership with 
Laurens, 17, 44, 70 

Austin & Laurens, business, 55 



517 



518 



Index 



B 



Bachop, Peter, 378, 380 

Ball, Eleanor. See Mrs. Henry 
Laurens. 

Ball, Elias, the immigrant, daughter 
marries Henry Laurens, 57; gene- 
alogy, £E., p. 502 

Ball, Elias (son of John Coming 
Ball and grandson of Elias Ball, 
the immigrant), settlement of 
father's estate, 65; conservative 
in the Revolution, 209, n. 

Ball, John Coming, dies, 61 ; gene- 
alogy, flf., p. 502 

Bank of North America, 485 

Barbe-Marbois. See Marbois. 

Barksdale, Allen, 422, n. 4 

Barksdale, John A., 422, n. 4 

Barlow, S. L. M., 374, n. 

Barry, John, 480 

Bartlett, Josiah, 315 

Bartram, William, remarks on Fort 
Prince George and the Vale of 
Keowee, 507, n. 2, 508, 510 

Bath, Laurens goes to, 409, etc. 
See under Henry Laurens. 

Battle of Fort Moultrie, 223 

Beaufain. See De Beaufain. 

Beaumarchais, Caron de, services 
to America and mistreatment by 
Congress, 281, n., 321, 327, n. 

Benereau, Marie, 4 

Berom, a slave, Laurens's kindness 
to, 66, 436 

Berryman, Jane, 6, n. i 

Bethabara, N. C, Moravians at, 455 

Bethesda Orphanage, 391 and n. i 

Bethlehem, Pa., Moravian settle- 
ment, Laurens visits, 183, 455; 
hospitals at. 455 

Bill of Rights. See Society of the 
Supporters of the Bill of Rights. 

Bills of credit, issued, 1774, by 
South Carolina Commons' sole 
authority, 174 

Bills of exchange, in South Carolina, 
50 et seq. 

Bishop of Worcester, 365, 466 

Board of War, 266, 267, 272 

Bonneau, Anthony, 11 

Boone, Gov. Thomas, controversy 
with Assembl)^ over election of 
Christopher Gadsden, no et seq.; 
salary withheld, but later paid, 
111-12; recalled, no 

Bordeaux, 395 



Boston, tea party, 193 et seq. 

Boudinot, EHas, 235, n. 

Boundaries, between South Carolina 
and Cherokee Indians, 96 et seq., 
102, 106 et seq., 510; discussion 
of boundaries for treaty of 1783 
with England, 339 

Bounty, for immigrants into South 
Carolina, 47; on Irish Protestants, 
67-8 ; discontinued, 68 ; on indigo, 
22 

Brailsford, Samuel, on slave trade, 

85 

Bremar, Elizabeth Hannah, 103, n.; 
genealogy S. p. 502 

Bremar, Francis, genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Bremar, John, 400, n. ; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Bremar, Mary, 103, n. ; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Brewton, Miles, prominent mer- 
chant, 44 

BrogHe, Due du, 308 

Broughton, Mr., genealogy ff. p. 502 

Broughton, Mrs. See Mrs. James 
Laurens. 

Broughton Island Packet, trial of, 
139 et seq.; plantation, 21; loca- 
tion and products, 130 and n. 2 

Bidl, Lt.-Gov. William, on growing 
power of Commons House, 39; 
on paper currency, 53 ; on number 
of slaves imported, 87-8, and 
notes; on Cherokee troubles, 99, 
102 ; administers government, 1 10 ; 
compromises on Stamp Act, 121; 
on Wilkes fund controversy, 163; 
on appropriation of money by 
South Carolina Commons, 164-5; 
urges flour and tobacco bills, 168; 
tactful conduct in opposing Com- 
mons in Wilkes fund, 169; on 
disorders in back coxuitry, 171; 
despairs of checking power of 
Commons, 174; refuses to accept 
bills of credit, 175; urges schools 
and college, 179; mentioned, 378, 
n.2,379 

Burge, William, quoted on slave 
trade, 84, n. i 

Burgoyne, Lieutenant-Generaljohn, 
expedition from Canada in 1777, 
243 et seq. ; conditions placed upon 
by Congress, 245; charges that 
"public faith is broke," 246; 
threatens Indian massacre, 246, 



Index 



519 



n.; embarkation suspended, 250; 

immorality and falsehood of, 255; 

final disposal of his troops, 255-6; 

exchanged, 386, 394 
Burke, Edmund, befriends Laurens 

in Tower, 383-7, 385, 386, 387, 

488 
Burke, Thomas, account of flight 

from Philadelphia, 231; men- 
tioned, 323-4; 348 
Butler, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, 356 



Calabar (Africa), bad quality of 
slaves from, 77; smallpox among 
slaves from, 80 

Calhoun, Mrs. Catharine, murdered 
by Cherokees, 100 

Camden, Lord, Lord Chancellor in 
Cabinet of 1766, 150 

Campbell, Major, 487 

Campbell, Lord William, 200, 467 

Campbell, Lady William, {nee 
Sarah Izard), 467 

Canacaugh, Cherokee chief, 507, n. 

Canada, plan of invasion proposed 
to Lafayette, 272; invasion of 
proposed by Lafayette, 278 

Carleton, Sir Guy, 245, 249 

Carlisle, Lord, 296 

Carolina Matilda, Queen of Den- 
mark, imprisoned for adultery, 186 

" Carolinacus, " 178 

Castries, Marquis de, 480, and n. i 

Caswell, Governor Richard, of 
North Carolina, 342, 343 

Catharine II., of Russia, 360-1 

Cette, 395 

Champion, Richard, 390, and n. 2 

Chamber of commerce, in Charles- 
ton, 124, 175 

Charleston, commerce, 22 et seq.; 
society in, 32-3; first theatre, 33; 
population in 1750 to 1763, 33, 
58; fortifications, 33; growth of, 
about 1768, 123; politics, 443 

Charleston Library Society, 70 

Charleston Mercury, 431 

Chase, Samuel, 288, and n. 3 

Chatham. See Pitt, William, the 
elder. 

Chehaw Neck, command of, re- 
quested by John Laurens; his 
death near, 489 

Cherokee County, 503 

Cherokee Indians, cession of 1730, 



96 et seq., 510; sell land in 1753 
for Ft. Prince George, 98, 503, 
et seq., 509, n. ; war of 1760-61, 
100 et seq.; cede large territory, 
102, 510; later history, 106 et seq. 

Chester County, slavery drives out 
white population, 452, n., 453; 
mentioned, 503 

Chesterfield, Lord, 189 

Chew, Benjamin, 145 

Chim^re, 355 

Cincinnati, Society of the, 293 

Circuit Courts. See Courts. 

Church, government of, in South 
Carolina, 37 

Church, William Singleton. See 
Thomas Digges. 

Clarke, Rev. Richard, 182, 188, 464 

Climate, extreme cold weather in 
1747 and 1766, 120 

Clinton, Sir Henry, 244, 247, 251; 
violates paroles granted in South 
Carolina, 254-5 

Closter Seven, Convention of, 248, 

254 
Colleton, John, sells Mepkin to 

Laurens, 125 
College of Charleston, attempt to 
found, 177; founded 1785; Presi- 
dent to be Episcopalian, 179, 
and n. 
Coming, Mrs. Afra, 29, 57 
Coming-Tee plantation, 57 
Commerce, of South CaroUna in 
middle of eighteenth century, 22 
et seq. ; methods in South Carolina, 
50; Laurens on, 496 et seq. See 
also Commissions. 
Commissions, business, ordinary 
and for slave trade, 75; for other 
business, 47 
Committee of Commerce, 329 
Commons, British House of, model 

of South Carolina Commons, 39 
Commons House of Assembly, 
South Carolina, increasing power 
throughout eighteenth century, 
34-5 et seq.; control over money 
bills, 38 et seq.; withholds salary 
of Chief Justice James Wright, 
39; secures control of Colonial 
Agent and Committee of Corre- 
spondence, 40; radical financial 
policies, 44; controversy with 
Council over Boone's salary, 1 1 1- 
2; appropriates £1500 for the 
support of cause of Wilkes, 163; 



520 



Index 



Insists on reimbursing treasurers 
for Wilkes fund, i68; usurpation 
of power, 170; further appropria- 
tions of money by sole authority, 

174 

Congress, Continental, deterioration 
of, 227, 240; improvement, 288; 
character and difficulties of, 228, 
230, 240; rules of procedure in, 
230-1, and n. ; flees from Phila- 
delphia, 231; suffers in reputa- 
tion from Conway Cabal, 274, 
275; depleted attendance, 277; 
meets at Lancaster, Pa., 231; 
at York, Pa., 232; list of Presi- 
dents, with dates, 235, n.; conduct 
of, in Saratoga Convention, 250 
et seq^.; parties in, 257 et seq.; 
votes to send Journals to States, 
335; failure to do Deane justice, 
325 et passim; payment of part of 
his claim, 327; seeks Laurens's 
release, 368; supposed neglect of 
Laurens, 384; refuses reimburse- 
ment to Laurens for aid to pris- 
oners in England, 392; instruc- 
tions for peace commissioners, 
405 ; attack on Laurens iii, 396-9 ; 
refuses to accept resignation as 
peace commissioner, 398; orders 
Laurens to join peace commis- 
sioners, 401 

Congress, Provincial. See Provin- 
cial Congress. 

Connecticut, 285, n. 3 

Constitution, effect of written, 43; 
South Carolina's, of 1776, 221-2; 
of 1778, 301, 476; Laurens's 
attitude towards United States 
constitutional convention of 1787, 

337 

Continental Congress. See Con- 
gress, Continental. 

Conway, Henry Seymour, Secretary 
of State, 1765-8, 150; General, 

379 

Conway, General Thomas, Cabal, 
257 e^ seq. ; relations with Laurens, 
260, 263; Inspector General, 266; 
his letter to Gates regarding 
Washington, 267, 271; seeks to 
secure favor of Laurens, 267; 
mentioned, 269, 272, 274-5 

Conway Cabal, 257 et seq. 

Cooke, William, 7 

Cooper, Sir Guy, 367. 384, n. , 386 

Cooper River, estates along, 28 



Corane, Cherokee chief, 507, n. 

Cordesville, 32 

Comwallis, Lord, exchanged for 
Laurens, 387, 389, 394; surrender 
at Yorktown; constable of the 
Tower of London, 487-8; men- 
tioned, 367 

Correspondence, Committee of, in 
South Carolina, under control of 
Commons, 40 

Corruption, charges of, in Revolu- 
tionary government, 286-91 

Cotton, exports, 23; Laurens plants. 

Council, King's, in South Carolina, 
withstands claim of Commons 
House to control money bills, 39 ; 
objects to Crokatt as Agent, 40; 
decline in character, 41, 11 3-4; 
opposition to radical financial 
policy, 44; controversy with Com- 
mons House over Boone's salary, 
1 1 1-2; equal legislative power of , 
asserted by royal officials, 166; 
opposes Commons in Wilkes fund, 
168; Commons deny its being a 
house of the legislature, 174 

Council of Safety, in South Carolina 
204 et seq.; 213, 214, 220 

Countess of Scarborough, 360 

Courts, circuit courts established in 
1769; opened in 1772, 129; Leigh 
threatens to block bill for, 144. 
See also Admiralty Court. 

Creek Indians, cede lands to 
Georgia in 1763, 126 

Cremation, Laurens directs, for his 
body, 457; other instances of, 
468, n. 2 

Crokatt, James, merchant in 
Charleston and London; Colonial 
Agent of South Carolina, 15, 40; 
early relations with Laurens, 15- 
18 

Crow Creek, 504, 507, 509 n. 

Crowfield, 28 

Cumberland, Duke of, assessed 
damages for adultery with Lady 
Grosvenor; marriage of, 186 

Currency (South Carolina paper 
money), ordinary medium of 
exchange, 52; value of, 52-;-4. 
See also Paper money and Bills 
of credit. 

Custer, James, 62, n. 4 

Customs officers, Laurens's paper 
on, 495-501 



Index 



521 



Dancing, 31 

Dart, Benjamin, on committee 
regarding Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia circular letters of 1768, 155 

Dartmouth, Earl of, 174 

Davison, Monkhouse, 59 

Day, Thomas, friendship for Lau- 
rens, 390; opposes slavery, 452, 
n. 3; writes inscriptions for 
grave of Lt.-Col, John Laurens, 

459, 493-4 

Deane, SUas, American represen- 
tative in France, 305 et seq.; 
accused by Arthur Lee, 306-7, 
309, 311, 320,325; recalled, 307; 
arrives in America; friends and 
enemies in Congress, 308 ; hearing 
before Congress, 309 et seq. ; arti- 
cle in Pennsylvania Packet, 310; 
services in France, 325; justice 
denied him by Congress, 326, 328 ; 
deserts American cause; half his 
claim paid after his death, 327; 
Laurens's charges against, 327- 
8 and n.; friend of Paine, 332; 
mentioned, 398 

Death rate, in Charleston, etc., 58, 
502 

De Beaufain, Hector Beringer, 50 

De Castries. See Castries. 

Deer htmting, 31 

Deer skins, exports, 22 et seq. ; value 
and number, 24 

De Grey, William, on right of South 
Carolina Commons to appropriate 
money, 163-4 

De Kalb, 263, n. 

Delaware, 285, n. 3, 288 

Democratic party, 430 

Denmark, 288 

DeSaussure, Daniel, prominent mer- 
chant, 44 

D'Estaing, Count, 279, 308 

De Vergennes. See Vergennes. 

De Verne, 29, 414 

Dickinson, John, 341 

Digges, Thomas, 366, n. i, 392-3, 
392, n. 2 

Diplomacy, American, in Revolu- 
tion, 305 

Dollar. See Spanish dollar. 

Doubloon, value of, 54 

Downs, Jonathan, 422 n. 4 

Downs, Nancy, 422 n. 4 

Drafts. See Bills of exchange. 



Draper, Lyman C, his connection 
with Logan's manuscripts, 97 n. 

Drayton, John, bill of exchange in 
favor of, 51 

Drayton, William Henry, in 1768 a 
conservative leader, 152; pub- 
lishes protest against Coimcil in 
Wilkes fund dispute, 173; letter 
to Congress, 1774, 197; aggressive 
Revolutionary leader, 205; leads 
party for independence, 218-9; 
Chief Justice, 219; enters Con- 
gress, 288; instdted, 312; secures 
information unfavorable to Ar- 
thur Lee, 321-3; urges publicity, 
335; quarrels with Laurens, 338- 
9, 340, 342, 345, 346; favors sur- 
rendering fishing rights, 340, 342, 
345-6; death and burial, 339, 346; 
favors black regiments, 449 ; men- 
tioned, 219, 223, 293, 298, n. 2, 
299, 301,378, n. 2. 

Drelincourt, 364 

Drunkenness, in eighteenth cen- 
tury South Carolina, 29-30; 
among slaves, 73 

Duels, Laurens and Grimk6; Lau- 
rens's history in connection with 
dueling; Leigh-Laurens and 
Moore-Laurens challenges; Mid- 
dleton-Grant duel ; John Laurens- 
Charles Lee duel, 216, and n., 
472; Gadsden-Howe duel, 301, 
439 and n. 3 

Du Laurens, Andr6, 2, n. 

Duncan, Sir William, 51 

Dunning, John, 191 

Duponceau, officer with Steuben, 
236, n. 



E 



Eaton, conditions at, in i8th cen- 
tury, 188 

Eden, William, 296 

Education, 177 et seq.; 182; 431 

Edgefield County, 503 

Eglinton, Earl of. See Mont- 
gomery, Col. Archibald. 

Elliot, Benjamin, on committee 
regarding Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia circular letters of 1768, 155 

Elliott, Thomas, 7 

EHott, William, 7 

"Emigrant Society," 456 

Emmet, Thomas Addis, 373, n. 2 

England, intimate connection of 



522 



Index 



South Carolina with, 33; vetoes 
efforts of colonies to check slave 
trade, 76; her part in the trade, 
93 ; sends Commissioners to con- 
ciliate America, 295 et seq.; use 
of Van Berkel draft, 359-60; 
declares war on Netherlands, 
360, 361 

"Enumerated articles," 23; 137 
and n. ; 142 

Erskine, Lady Ann, 390 

Ettwein, John, Laurens corresponds 
with, on slavery, 88, 91 ; his views 
on, 445 ; preaching at Orangeburg, 
128; mentioned, 183; 455-6 

Exchange. See Bills of exchange. 

Extracts from the Proceedings of the 
Court of Vice- Admiralty, pub- 
lished by Laurens, 145-6 



Fairfield County, slavery drives out 
white population, 452, n., 453, 503 

Fairy, 363 

Farmer, case of the ship, 330 et seq. 

Federalists, in South Carolina, 443 
and n. 2 

Ferguson, Dr., secretary of British 
peace commission, 472 

Fever, 32 

Finances, Revolutionary, 281-5 

Fisher, William, sketch of, 67 and 
n. ; part owner of the An7t, 142; 
145; prints Laurens's articles on 
the Court of Vice-Admiralty, 145 

Fisheries, discussion of, 340 et seq.; 

.398:407 

Fitzgerald, Major John, 271 

Fleury, Major Louis, 236, n.; 237, 
n. ; 238, n. ; 473 

Florida, Greek settlers in, 51; 
acquired by England; investment 
in, by English and South Caro- 
linians, 126; 340 

Ford, Timothy, 424; 425, n. i 

Fort Johnson, seized by colonists, 
217 

Fort Loudon, erected, 98; massacre 
at, loi; mentioned, 510 

Fort Orange, 360 

Fort Prince George, erected, 98, 99 
503 et seq.; massacre at, 100, loi 
in Cherokee war of 1761, 102 
site and possible traces of, 507-8 
later history, 50S 

Fox, Charles James, 393; 411 



Fox, Henry (Lord Holland), 286 
and n. 3 

France, her part in slave trade, 93; 
alliance of 1778, 276; attitude 
towards America, 279; govern- 
ment of, distrusts Laurens, 393; 
question of peace with England 
separate from France, 391, 392- 
3, 400, 401, n., 403-8; sends naval 
force to America; loan to United 
States through John Laurens's 
efforts, 486; financial aid to 
United States, 484-6 

Franklin, Benjamin, on Wilkes case, 
161; dismiissed as Deputy Post- 
master General, and threatened 
with arrest, 196; politics of, 257; 
Laurens's opinion of, 196; be- 
friends Laurens in Tower, 366, 
367, 368, 385; on Laurens's ex- 
change, 394; relations with John 
Laurens, 48 1 ; opinion of John 
Laurens, 489 ; mentioned, 1 1 ; 
228; 305; 306; 308, n. 2; 320; 
326 ; 328 ; 401 ; 402 ; 404 ; 41 1 ; 416 
and n. 2; 418; 485 

Franklin, Governor William, 288 

Freight rates, 24-6; from Charleston 
to Europe, etc., 49; at time of 
Stamp Act, 121 

French, in New York, 4-5 ; in South 
Carolina, 9 ; intrigues with Chero- 
kees, 98. See also Huguenots. 

Futerell, Miss, 363; 426, n. i 

Futerell, Mrs. 426, n. i 

Futerell, James, 363 

Fury, Peregrine, 50 



G 



Gadsden, Christopher, birth and 
youthful friendship with Laurens, 
14; later hostility, 103, 105-6, 119 
and n., 153 and n. 3, 299 et seq.; 
prominent merchant, 44; on elec- 
tion of 1762, 36; on quarrel be- 
tween Governor and Assembly, 
84, n. ; engineers agitation against 
Stamp Act, 120; radical leader, 
152, 155, 205; urges independence, 
221, 223; in Continental. Congress 
218 ; quarrel and duel with Howe, 
300 et seq. 

Gambia, slaves from, the favorites, 
76 

Garden, Laurens's, 64 



Index 



523 



Garden, Alexander, strives for col- 
lege, 179 

Garth, Charles, Agent of South 
Carolina in England, 151, 172, 

185, 379 

Gates, General Horatio, in cam- 
paign against Burgoyne, 243 et 
seq.\ relations with Burgoyne, 
247; with Laurens, 247, 260-3; 
in Conway Cabal, 263 et seq. 

Gazette, The South Carolina, opposes 
slave trade, 87 

General Committee, in South Caro- 
lina in Revolution, 204 et seq., 
206, 214, 220 

Geneva, conditions in, 188-90; 
influence on John Laurens, 474; 
mentioned, 464 

George IIL, attack on Wilkes, 160, 
161; rewards British officer for 
concealing colors at Saratoga, 
244; opens private letters, 217. 
(5ee "White Eyes"?) 

Georgia, early difficulties and later 
prosperity; acquires land from 
Indians in 1763, 126; defends 
slavery in votes on Articles of 
Confederation, 232 ; mentioned, 
285, n. 3 

Gerard, C. A., 321, 322, 341 

Germaine, Lord George, 371, 384, 
n. 

Gervais, John Lewis, in land trans- 
actions with Laurens, 70, n. 2; 
at Ninety-Six, 128-9; Laurens's 
second in Grimk6 duel, 216, n. ; 
mentioned, 226, n. i 

Gibbon, Edward, 381 

Gibson, Gideon, 454 

Gillon, Alexander, 239; mission to 
Europe and sale of goods to 
United States through John Lau- 
rens, 487 

Gittens, John (child), 9, 10, n. i; 
genealogy ff. p. 502 

Gittens, Mrs. Mary (n6e Laurens), 
9-1 1 ; genealogy £E. p. 502 

Gittens, Nathaniel, 9-10; genealogy 
ff . p. 502 

Glen, Gov. James, on South Carolina 
commerce, 22 et seq. ; on drinking 
in South Carolina, 30; residence 
in Charleston, 62; on natural 
increase of slaves in South 
Carolina, 72; description of gov- 
ernment of South Carolina, 35-7; 
conflict with Council; overtures of 



Commons to, 41, 468, n.; pur- 
chases land for fort from Chero- 
kees, 98, 503 et seq.; builds Ft. 
Prince George, 504-5, 509, n. 

Gloucester, Duke of, marries Coun- 
tess of Waldgrave, 186 

Gold Coast (Africa), quaHties and 
price of slaves from, 76, 78 

Gordon, Lord George, 368-9 

Gore, Major, 363, 366, 367, 369, 
370, 382, 383 

Gorham, Nathaniel, 235, n. 

Gout, common in i8th century 
South Carolina; attacks Laurens 
123, 238, 384, 390, 416, 423 

Govett, WiUiam, 235, n. 

Grafton, Duke of, 151 

Grant, Dr., 367 

Grant, Colonel (later General) 
James, leads expedition of 1761 
against Cherokees, 102; approves 
Henry Laurens's conduct, 103; 
quarrel with Thomas Middleton, 
104-5; duel with Middleton, 216; 
friend of Laurens, 119; men- 
tioned, 51, 370, 371 

Grasset, Auguste, 5; genealogy ff. 
p. 502 

Grasset, Esther (or Hester), (mother 
of Henry Laurens), marries John 
Laurens, father of Henry Laurens, 

5, 6 and n., 1 1 ; genealogy ff . p. 502 
Grasset, Marie, 5; genealogy ff. p. 

502 
Grasset, Samuel, 5; genealogy ff. 

p. 502 
Great Britain. See England. 
Greeks, settlers in Florida, 51 
Greene, Colonel Christopher, his 

black regiment, 448, n. 3 
Greene, General Nathaniel, 290 
Griffin, Cyrus, 235, n, 
Grimkd, anti-slavery sentiment in 

the family, 451-2, n. 
Grimk^, John Faucheraud, quarrel 

and duel with Laurens, 214-17, 

467 
Grimk^, John Paul, on openmg 

letters of suspects^ 214-17 
Grosset. See Grasset. Also 5 and 

6, n. 

Grosvenor, Lady, adultery with 
Duke of Cumberland, 186 

Guadalcupe, 47 

Guinea, smallpox on slave ship 
from, 79 

Guinea worm, 73, n. 4 



524 



Index 



H 



Half-pay question, 291-5 

Hamilton, Duke of, 189 

Hamilton, Alexander, 231, 479 and 
n., 480, 491 

Hancock, John, resigns Presidency 
of Congress, 234; contest on 
whether to vote him thanks, 234 
and n. 2; second time President 
of Congress; terms, 235, n.; 
mentioned, 300, 317 

Hanson, John, 235 n. 

Hawkins, Sir John, 74 

Hayne, Robert Y., marries Laurens's 
granddaughter, 431; opinion of 
John Laurens, 474, 490 ; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Henderson, Mr., husband of Frances 
Eleanor Laurens, 469; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Henderson, Mrs. See Frances 
Eleanor Laurens. 

Henry IV., 2, n. 

Henry, Patrick, friend of Washing- 
ton, 270 

Herrenhausen, Gervais' home at 
Ninety-Six, 128 

Hessians, final disposition of Bur- 
goyne's, 255-6 

Hewatt, Alexander, opponent of 
slavery, and remarks on, 73 

Hewit, Mary, 11 

Heyward, Thomas, Jr., 219, 226, n. i, 
227, 228 

Hillsborough, Lord, 172, 373, n. 2, 

374 
Himeli, Rev., 463, 464 
Hog Island Channel, 219 
Holland. See Netherlands. 
Holland, Lord. See Henry Fox. 
HoUand, Mr., genealogy ff. p. 502 
Holland, Elizabeth, genealogy fE. 

p. 502 
HoUand, Mary. See Mrs. James 

Laurens. 
Holmes, Ebenezer, 16 
Hopton, John, 75 
Horlbeck, Mr., 51 
Horse racing in South Carolina, 31 
Hartalez, Roderique, & Co., 281, n. 

310. See also Beaumarchais. 
Houston, Governor John, Laurens's 

intercepted letter to, 289, 347 
Howe, Robert (American General), 

300 et seq.; duel with Gadsden, 

301 



Howe, William (British General), 

245, 247, 267 
Huger, Isaac, in Cherokee war of 

1 76 1, 102; favors negro troops, 

449 
Huguenots, 2, n., 2-5, 9, 13 n., 436, 

439, 454. 463 
Huntingdon, Samuel, 235, n., 316, 

341 

Huntingdon, Selina, Countess of, 

390-1, 391, n. I 
Hutson, Richard, 288, 293 



Immigration, into South Carolina; 
bounty, 47; bounty on Irish 
Protestants, 67-8; bounty dis- 
continued, 68; modem attempts 
to encourage, 456 and n. 3 

Indentured white servants, in South 
Carolina, 47-8 ; in North Carolina, 
48 ; Laurens imports, 67 

Indian King, 183 

Indians, trade, 23 et seq.\ line of 
1 761 and 1768-70 between whites 
and, 102; line of 1777, 107; re- 
moved from South Carolina in 
1816, 107; number of Indians in 
North Carolina in 19 13, 108; 
cremation among, 458 ; relics and 
remains, 507, n. 2, 508. See also 
Cherokee Indians. 

Indigo, bounty on; exports, 22; pro- 
cess of making, 131; shipped by 
Laurens for expenses in Europe, 
412, 413 

Industry, planting, 21 et seq.; mer- 
chants, 21 et seq. 

Inoculation, 182, 436 

Instructions, to Governor by King, 
41; "Additional Instruction of 
1770," 166. See also Wilkes 
fund dispute. 

Insurrection of negroes in 1739, 82; 
feared in 1766, 120; plotted in 
1820, 456 

Interest rate, history of, in South 
Carolina, 49 and n. 3 

Izard, Mr., seconds Grimk6 in duel 
with Laurens, 467 

Izard, Ralph, Jr., in London, 172; 
letter of Henry Laurens to, 45; 
opposition to Deane; his char- 
acter and career, 308 and n. 2 

Izard, Sarah. See Lady William 
Campbell. 



Index 



525 



Jackson, Mr., 67 

Jackson, John, 134, n. 3 

Jackson, William, 52 

Jackson, Capt. William, 479, 480, n. 
I, 482, 483, n. I, 484 and n. i 

"Jacksonborough Legislature" of 
South Carolina, 488 

James Fort (Gambia), 76 

Jay, John, politics of, 257; friend of 
Deane, 308; attitude towards 
Laurens, 313, 319, 393, n. i; 
elected President of Congress, 
318; term, 235, n. ; mentioned for 
second term as President of 
Congress, 420, 421, n.; Marbois 
letter, 408; mentioned, 285,315- 
16, 327, 328, 402, 416, n. 2, 418, 
n. I. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 305, 396, n. 2, 
402 

Jenings, Edmund, 306 ; quarrel with 
Laurens, 417-18 

Jerry, negro, 214 

Jervey, Theo. D., quoted on inden- 
tured servitude, 48 n. 

Johnson, Samuel, 235 n. 

Johnstone, George, 296-9, 472 

Jones, John Paul, 360 



K 



Keowee (Indian town), 506 and n., 
507,n. 2,509, n., 510 

Keowee River, 504-9; beauty of, 
510 

Kershaw, Joseph, prominent mer- 
chant, 44 

Kinloch, Francis, 474 



Lafayette, Marchioness de, seeks 
to aid Laurens in Tower, 236, 
368 

Lafayette, Marquis de, never in 
Laurens house in Charleston, 63 
n. i; wounded, 231, 236; assisted 
then by Laurens, 23 1 , 368 ; land- 
ing in America and arrival in Phila- 
delphia; friendship with Laurens, 
236 ; correspondence with Laurens, 
272-3; borrows $6000 from 
Laurens, 273, 368 n. 2; offer of 
loan declined by Laurens, 368 
n. 2 ; Conway Cabal plotters pro- 



pose Canadian expedition for; 
his regard for Washington, 272; 
proposes invasion of Canada, 278 ; 
opinions in connection with Sara- 
toga Convention, 248; friend- 
ship with John Laurens, 472 

Lancaster, Pa., 231 

Land, speculation in, 27; amounts 
granted, 27; frauds, 42 

Langdon, Woodbury, 349 

Laurence family in Rochelle, 12 

n. 3 

Laurens, Andr6, 4, 5, 13 n.; removes 
from New York to Charleston, 6 ; 
death and character, 6; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Andr^du. ^eeDu Laurens. 

Laurens, Andrew, 6 n. i 

Laurens, Ann Elizabeth, genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Auguste, genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Laurens, Eleanor (child), genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Eleanor (another child), 
genealogy ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Elias, genealogy ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Elizabeth, genealogy ff. 
p. 502 

Laurens, Frances Eleanor (daugh- 
ter of Lt.-Col. John Laurens), 
365,369; share of Henry Laurens's 
estate, 426 n. i; character, 431; 
in South Carolina, 431, 468; mar- 
riage and death, 469-70; gen- 
ealogy ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Henry: 

Birth and Ancestry : 
Ancestry, 2-5, 12-14 n,; birth, 13; 
coat of arms, 14 n.; genealogy ff. 
502; executor and legatee of 
father's estate, 12 

Early life : 

Boyhood friendship with Gadsden, 
14; first trip to England, 10, 15; 
second trip, 16-18; with Crokatt 
in London, 15; motto, 16, 18 

Business career: 

Partnership with Austin, 44-5; 
with Austin and Appleby, 45; 
opinion of gentlemen of leisure, 
45 ; early rising; business methods, 
46 et seq., 55, 70; ship owner, 48; 
importer of slaves; retires from 
business, 69-70, 182; apparently 



526 



Index 



did not invest in British bonds, 
198 n. 

As a planter and slave owner: 
Love of agriculture, 124; buys 
MepMn, 125; visits Florida and 
Georgia, 1766, 126; lands in 
Georgiaand upper South Carolina, 
127; location and extent of his 
plantations, 125, 130 and n. 2; 
offers Georgia lands for sale in 
^7^7) 130 a- 2, 425; introduces 
ingenious devices, progressive 
methods, and new plants, 13 1-2, 
424, 425; care of his negroes, 65- 
8, 133 et se^., 192, 425, 435-6 
et seg. ; care of sick slaves, 73 ; his 
wealth, 69, 136, 446 

Views on slavery and negro troops: 
On slavery and slave trade, S5-6, 
88-90, 445-55; on Somerset case; 
growing sentiment against slav- 
ery, 191 ; emancipates some slaves 
456; protests against injustice 
against suspected negroes, 214; 
on negro troops, 356, 448-50 

Family life, education, etc.: 
Proposes to Eleanor Ball; mar- 
ries her, 29, 57; moves from lower 
to upper part of Charleston, 62; 
description of residence, 62-4; 
injuries to house in Revolution, 
62 n. 4; house not visited by 
Lafayette and Washington, 63 
n. i; delight in his garden, 64; 
loss of wife; his grief, 180 et seq.; 
refrains from remarriage, 11 ; 
birth and death of children, 58- 
60; ntunber of children, 180; 
relations with his children, 436-8, 
470; opposes De Verne's advances 
to Martha, 414; rebukes his 
method of courtship, 29; seeks 
to briag family home during 
Revolution, 468 

Views on general public interests : 
Interest in education, 177 et seq., 
182; seeks to establish CoUege of 
Charleston, 431; recruits troops 
for Cherokee war; his character 
and standing about 1760-70, 70-1 ; 
services as Lieutenant-Colonel in 
Cherokee war, 10 1-4; condemns 
large holdings of land; lands in 
upper South Carolina, 12S; in- 
terest in welfare of back country 



and in liberal laws, 129, 171; 

on Acts of Trade and Navigation, 
498 ; seeks Moravian immigrants ; 
offers them land; friendship to 
Bethlehem, Pa., Moravians, 455- 
6; friendship for Ettwein; visits 
Bethlehem and Reading, Pa.; 
member American Philosophical 
Society; donation to, 183; visits 
New York and sails for England, 
1771, 184; in London, 1771 et 
seq., 185 

Attitude on American rights, etc.: 
Views on Stamp Act, 116 et seq., 
2)75', favors resistance to Stamp 
Act by petitions, 121; refuses to 
vote for delegates to Stamp Act 
Congress ; on Chatham and South 
Carolina's statue of, for defending 
American freedom; his reasons 
for moderation in opposing Stamp 
Act; attachment to England, 122; 
troubles with Court of Vice- 
Admiralty, 137 et seq.; pulls 
Moore's nose, 141 ; awarded dam- 
ages against RoupeU, 142; pro- 
test against powers of Court of 
Vice- Admiralty, 143-4, 147-8; 
friendship and later quarrel with 
Egerton Leigh, 144-5; prints 
articles criticizing Leigh, Admir- 
alty Courts, and customs officers, 
145-6, 495; challenged by Leigh, 
146-7 challenged by Moore, 141 ; 
sends articles against Leigh to 
British officials, etc., 147; dispute 
with Court of Vice-Admiralty 
rouses him to stronger sense of 
American rights, 148^, 152, 495; 
in 1768 a conservative friend of 
American liberty, 152, 155; re- 
sentment at British measures of 
repression in 1768, 153; opinion 
of Christopher Gadsden, 153 
and n. 3; endorses non-importa- 
tion in 1768-71; representation 
by himself in 1 78 1 of his position 
on non-importation, 157; con- 
demns South Carolina Commons 
for Wilkes fund appropriation, 
but asserts their legal right to 
make appropriation, 167, 170, 
171-2; condemns King's veto of 
biUs for new S. C. parishes and 
biUs of credit, 170; defends 
American and Carolinian rights 



Index 



527 



in England, 193 et seq.; on treat- 
ment of the tea in Boston and 
Charleston, etc., 194; values 
Franklin, 196; demands repeal of 
all laws taxing America, 195; 
signs and presents petition against 
punitive acts of 1774; leaves 
England for Charleston, 1774, 
197; attitude towards independ- 
ence, 200, 217-18,221,224-5, 377; 
attachment to England, 122, 
376-9, 497, 501 

Political life before Revolution: 
Enters Commons House of 
Assembly, 42, 95; subsequent 
elections, 95, 109; on character 
of South Carolina; breadth of 
views, 95; on struggles with the 
Council, 96; declines position in 
the King's Council for South 
Carolina, 1 13-15; resigns mem- 
bership in Commons, 193 

Duels; Cherokee war: 
Recruiting in 1761; Lieutenant- 
Colonel in Cherokee war, loi ; 
conduct in, 103; duels, 439 and 
n. 3; quarrel with Grimk6 on 
opening suspected letters, and 
duel, 214-17, 467; on Middleton- 
Grant controversy, 109; blames 
Thomas Middleton, 104-5; early 
friendship and later quarrels 
with Christopher Gadsden, 105-6; 
assaulted by Thomas Wright, 1 1 1 

Leader in Revolution in South 

Carolina: 
Attitude towards Tories; Presi- 
dent First Council of Safety and 
of General Committee, 213; on 
obstructing Charleston harbor, 
214; quarrel and duel with 
Grimk6 on opening letters of 
suspects, 214-17; President 
Second Council of Safety, 219; at 
seizing of the King's powder ; holds 
balance between conservative 
and radical Revolutionary groups ; 
President First Provincial Con- 
gress, 205; speech on "Associa- 
tion" of 1774, 207; on "dictator- 
ship committee," 219; suggested 
for Continental Congress, 220; 
reports from committee on Con- 
stitution of 1776; on committee to 
draft Constitution of 1776; Vice- 



President of S. C. and member of 
Legislative Council, 222; disap- 
proves Rutledge's resignation of 
Presidency, 223 ; labors in organ- 
izing resistance to England, 226 

In Continental Congress: 
Elected to Continental Congress, 
226; takes seat, 227; account of 
flight of Congress from Phila- 
delphia, 231; opinions and votes 
on Articles of Confederation, 232 
et seq.; on committees, 229, 
229 n.; elected President of Con- 
tinental Congress, 235; term, 235 
n. ; offends Steuben, 236 n. et seq. ; 
offered resignation declined ; 
laments apathy of South Carolina, 
240-2; favors suspending Sara- 
toga Convention, 252-3; views 
on Board of War, 261; attitude 
to parties in Congress, 257 et seq.; 
letter to John Laurens on Conway 
Cabal plotters, 267-9, 270, 274; 
opposes invasion of Canada, 278- 
80; on finance, 281-5; reluctant 
to borrow of France, 276-80, 282 ; 
criticizes Congress, 277, 286-91; 
his intercepted Houston letter, 
289; favorable expressions regard- 
ing Congress, 291 ; half pay ques- 
tion, 291-5; sends money to 
Washington, 295; on British 
Peace Commission, 297; anger 
of Gadsden at, 299 et seq. ; blames 
Rutledge for resigning Presidency 
of South Carolina; resignation of 
Presidency of Congress in Oc- 
tober, 1778, declined, 302; de- 
scription of, in Odell's "American 
Times" quoted, 303 n. 2; resigna- 
tion of Presidency; thanked for 
services, 313; character as Presi- 
dent, 314-18; salary as President, 
318; nominates Arthur Lee for 
minister to Spain, 320, 328; anger 
at being outwitted by Drayton 
and Paca; in Thomas Paine 's 
case, 322; investigates transac- 
tions of Secret and Commerce 
Committees, 329 et seq.; brings 
to light the case of the Farmer, 
330 et seq. ; desires publicity in 
Congress, 335-6; desires a con- 
stitutional convention in 1779, 
260, 336, 337, 443; attitude 
towards convention of 1787, 337; 



528 



Index 



strongly desires fishing rights, 
340 et seq.; intercepted letter to 
Gov. Houston, 347; action of 
Congress on letter, 347-8; nom- 
inates John Adams peace com- 
missioner, 348; on salaries of 
ministers; elected minister to 
borrow money and negotiate 
commercial treaty in HoUand; 
salary, 349-50; motives in ac- 
cepting mission, 350-4; supports 
John Laurens in army, 351; his 
financial circumstances at time 
of mission, 351-2, 351 n. 5; 
movements, 1779-80, 353-8; ser- 
vices and character, 354; indigo 
for European expenses, 356 and 
n. 3; financial condition in 1781, 
382 

Relations with Washington and 

other leaders: 
Sends Washington anonymous 
letter which fell into his hands, 
270-1 ; disapproves invasion of 
Canada, 272; seeks to reconcile 
Washington and Gates, 273; re- 
lations with Conway, 274-5; at- 
titude towards Washington, 258, 
264,270-1, 295, 336; relations with 
the Adamses, 258, 272, 287, 310, 
348, 402, 403; expression regard- 
ing B. Arnold, 266, 365; relations 
with Deane, 309 et seq.; his 
charges against Deane, 327-8 
and n.; quarrels, etc., with 
Drayton, 323, 338-9, 340, 342, 
345, 346; admiration for Franklin, 

259, 260 n.; Franklin's opinion of 
Laurens, 402, 403; relations with 
Gadsden, 14, 103, 105-6, 119 and 
n., 153 and n. 3, 299, et seq.; atti- 
tude towards Gates, 247, 260-3, 
273-4; opinion of Alexander G2- 
lon, 239; relations withljay, 260, 
319, 393 n.; quarrel with Jenings, 
417-18; assists wounded Lafay- 
ette, 23 1 ; friendship with Lafay- 
ette, 236; lends Lafayette $6000; 
declines loan from Lafayette, 368 
n. 2. ; friendship with Arthur Lee, 
312 et passim, 469; with the Vir- 
ginia Lee brothers, 258, 272, 287, 
310; relations with Robert Morris, 

260, 329-34; brings the Farmer 
case to light, 330-4; helps vindi- 
cate Morris, 332-4; attitude 



towards Schuyler, 247, 260-3, 
273-4; quarrels with Charles 
Thomson, 516 et seq. 

In Tower of London: 
Arrives in Philadelphia on way 
to European mission, 478 and n. 2 ; 
seems to desire to resign mission; 
sails for Europe, 357; captured, 
358; blamed for not destroying 
Van Berkel treaty, 362 ; in Tower 
of London, 363 et seq.; expres- 
sions regarding B. Arnold, 365; 
lends Lafayette $6000; declines 
loan from Lafayette, 368 n. 2; 
petition of June 23, 1781, 374; 
attitude towards Stamp Act, 375 ; 
towards England before Revolu- 
tion, 376-9 ; towards independence, 
377 ; refuses to escape from Tower, 
381; scorns proposal to have 
John Laurens abandon mission to 
France, 481; petition of Decem- 
ber I, 1 78 1, to Speaker of House 
of Commons, 385-6; attacked in 
Congress on account of, 396-9; 
consideration of character of 
petition, 398-9; treatment of, in 
Tower; his treatment of Loyal- 
ists, 386; appeals in Tower to 
Congress, 387; released from 
Tower, 388; service to America in 
Tower, 389; gout; at Bath; Eng- 
lish friends, 390; fully discharged 
from imprisonment, 394; ex- 
changed for Comwallis, 387, 394; 
visits Southern France, 395, 399 ; 
returns to England, 395 

Peace Commissioner: 
Disappointed of early departure 
for America, 390, ^95, 399, 418; 
at Bath, 409, 416, 418; on ques- 
tion of peace separate from 
France, 391, 392-3. 400, 401 J^-. 
403-8 ; aid to American prisoners, 
392; exposes Digges's statement 
to Shelburne, 392-3; services in 
England, 393, 394, 396, 400. 402, 
404, 409-12; in forming peace 
treaty, 402; on question of com- 
mercial treaty with England, 
410-1 1 ; anonymous slanders 
against, 401; reluctantly receives 
pay as minister, 412, 413; finan- 
cial difficulties in Europe, 413; 



Index 



529 



quarrel with Jenings, 417-18; 
returns to America, 1784, 419-20; 
reports to Congress; mentioned 
for another term as President of 
Congress, 420, 421 n.; urges 
commercial treaty with England, 
420 

Life and Politics after Revolution: 
Arrives home after Revolution, 
42 1 ; elected to Federal constitu- 
tional convention and other posi- 
tions, but declines ; cotinty named 
for him, 422 and n. 4; attitude 
toward convention of 1787, 337; 
on Federal Constitution and 
politics, 442-5 ; retires to Mepkin, 
423; injury to his property in 
Revolution, 423 and n., 424, 426- 
7, 442 ; losses from Revolutionary 
paper and bad debts, 427-8; his 
will, 426 n. I ; conduct regarding 
brother's will and estate, 427 
and n. 2; feeds E. Rutledge's 
negroes, 429 

Opinions and character: 
Description and estimate of his 
character, 14, 19, 56, 60, 70-71, 
316, 343, 354, Chapter xxvii; 
religious character, 181, 438-41; 
motto, 16-18, 440; opinion on 
gentlemen of leisure, 45; early 
riser, 46; discharges overseers for 
adiiltery, 60 n., 66; kindness, 
especially to his slaves, 65-8; 
disgust at morals in England, 173, 
185-8 ; grease spot anecdote, 432 ; 
his Ubrary, his scholarship, 183, 
433-4, 440, 499; writings and 
style, 434-5; family life, 436-8; 
relations with John, 437 

Appearance, health, death: 
Appearance, i; gout, 123, 238, 
384, 390, 416, 423; scarlet fever, 
182, 416, 423; health, 415-16; 
last illness and death; cremated; 
grave at Mepkin, 457-8, 492 and 
n. 

Laurens, Henry (child), genealogy 
flf. p. 502 

Laurens, Mrs. Henry (nee Eleanor 
Ball), birth and ancestry, mar- 
riage, character, 57; illness, 61, 
66, 136; kindness to slaves, 65; 
frightened by Stamp Act mob, 

34 



117-18; ni from same, 119; 
illtiminates for safety, 121; love 
of gardening, 125; death, 70, 180, 
463 ; genealogy ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Henry, Jr., cultivates Mt. 
Tacitus plantation, 132; scarlet 
fever; sent to England to school; 
inoculated, 182, 188, 190, 365, 
369, 379, 420, 421 ; elected to pub- 
lic ofi&ce, 422; share of father's 
estate, 426 n. i 

Laurens, Mrs. Henry, Jr. See Eliza 
Rutledge. 

Laurens, Hester (child), genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Laurens, James (brother of Henry), 
prominent merchant, 44, 57, 70 
n. 2, 136; refuses to enter slave 
trade, 192, 445, 451 n. 2; in 
England and France, 226, 415; 
death, 418 and n. 3; his will; 
estate involved, 427 n. 2; gen- 
ealogy fE. p. 502 ; 395 

Laurens, Mrs. James (Henry Lau- 
rens's sister-in-law), 395, 419, 
421 ; genealogy fE. p. 502 

Laurens, James (son of Henry), 
182, 188, 190; genealogy fE. p. 
502 ; death, 224 n. 2. 

Laurens, Jean, 4 

Laurens, Jean Samuel. See John 
Laurens, father of Henry Laurens. 

Laurens, Jeanne, genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Laurens, John (father of Henry 
Laurens), 5; marries, 5; removes 
from New York to Charleston, 6 ; 
saddler, 7, 9 and n. i; wiU, 11; 
business, 1 1 ; ofEicial positions,_ 1 1 ; 
business and death, 12; relations 
with his children, 470; disap- 
proves slavery, 445, 451 n. 2; 
genealogy fE. p. 502 

Laurens, John (son of Henry), 
birth, ancestry, and early educa- 
tion, 59, 136, 463; genealogy flE. 
p. 502; scarlet fever, 182; educa- 
tion in England and Geneva, 188 
et seq., 464; studies law, 190, 464; 
returns from Geneva to London, 
190; groundless tradition of love 
affair with Margaret Shippen; 
poem to "Celia, " 468 and n. 3; 
marries Martha Manning, 365, 
464-5; her family and standing, 
466-7; seeks to bring wife and 
child to America, 468; corre- 



530 



Index 



spondence with wife, 310-11, 469; 

meets wife and child in France, 
481; returns to join Revolution, 
195, 471; supported in army by 
father without salary, 351; mili- 
tary services, 472-8, 487-91; 
relations -^ith Washington, 472, 
489 ; opposition to Conway Cabal, 
267; duel with Charles Lee, 216, 
472; friendship with Lafayette, 
472; wounded at Germantown; 
narrow escape at Monmouth; 
negotiates with French at New- 
port; declines Lieutenant-Colonel- 
cy, 473; accepts Lieutenant- 
Colonelcy ; goes South ; goes North 
for aid for war in South; captured 
at fall of Charleston, 477; in 
battle of Yorktown, 487; ap- 
pointed by Washington to receive 
surrender of British, 487-8; goes 
South to aid in war, 488 ; wounded, 
408; conduct and wound at 
Ttdlifinny Hill, 476-7; killed, 409, 
489; body moved to Mepkin, 
491; grave at, 458, 492 and n.; 
inscription on gravestone; epi- 
taphs proposed by Thomas Day, 
493~4; decUnes appointment, as 
Secretary to Legation in Paris, 
349, 478, 479 n. I ; elected Special 
Minister to France, 478, 479 and 
n. i; voyage and services as 
Special Minister to France, 371, 
480-7; relations with Franklin, 
481; extent of aid obtained from 
France, 484-6 ; purchases suppUes 
from Gillon; snuffbox from Louis 
XVI.; denounces promulgation 
of South CaroUna Constitution of 
1778 by authority of Legislature, 
476; service in Legislature, 488; 
defends name of his father, 332 
n. ; relations with father, 437, 470- 
i; last meeting with father, 358, 
478 ; seeks to aid father in Tower, 
368, 481; character, 474, 489- 
91; portrait in South Carolina 
capitol, 491; enemies' opinion of, 
490-1; Washington's opinion of, 
489; opinions on slavery, 447; 
on negro troops, 448-52 and 
notes passim, 450, 475, 488; 
aboHtionist views, 474 
Laurens, Mrs. John (Martha Man- 
ning, nicknamed "Patty," wife 
of Lt.-Col. John Laurens), mar- 



ries John Laurens, 464-5; her 
family and social standing, 466-7 ; 
friend of Lady Campbell, 467; 
relations with Henry Laurens, 
467; correspondence with hus- 
band, 310-11, 469; visits him in 
France; dies there, 469 and n. 3, 
481; genealogy S. p. 502; men- 
tioned, 365 

Laurens, Mrs. John, first wife of 
John Laurens (the father of 
Henry) and mother of Henry 
Laurens. See Esther (or Hester) 
Grasset. 

Laurens, Mrs. John (second wife 
of John Laurens, father of Henry). 
See Elizabeth Wicking. 

Laurens, Lydia, genealogy £E. p. 502 

Laurens, Martha (Mrs. David Ram- 
say, daughter of Henry Laurens), 
almost buried aUve when con- 
sidered dead with smallpox, 59, 64 
and n. 5, 457, 470; scarlet fever, 
182 ; education and character, 414, 
438; views on education, aris- 
tocracy, etc., 178 n., 441 n. 2; 
seeks to aid father in Tower, 368 ; 
with father in England, 416; with 
father at his death, 457 ; share of 
father's estate, 426 n. i; arrives 
home from England, 421; love 
affair with De Verne, 414; third 
wife of Dr. David Ramsay, 59, 
415, 430, 463 n. 2, 464 n. 2; let- 
ters to her son, 178 n.; genealogy 
ff. p. 502; mentioned, 391, 395 

Laurens, Martha (sister of Henry 
Laurens), genealogy ff. p. 502 

Laurens, Mary, genealogy ff. p. 502_ 

Laurens, Mary Eleanor, birth, 70, 
180; marries Governor Charles 
Pinckney, 70 n. i, 430; death, 
180, 431; descendants, 431; gen- 
ealogy ff . p. 502 ; grave at Mepkin, 
492 and n.; share of father's 
estate, 426 n. i ; mentioned, 395, 
421, 438 

Laurens, Peter, 12; genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Laurens, Samuel, genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Laurens County named for Henry 
Laurens, 422 and n. 4; 503 

Laurent, Jean, genealogy ff. p. 502 
(old spelling of Laurens) 

Lee, Arthur, American representa- 
tive in France, his character, 305- 



Index 



531 



6 ; charges Deane with dishonesty, 
306-7, 309, 311, 320; following in 
Congress, 308; kindness to John 
Laurens, 310-11; question of his 
recall, 320 et seq.; nominated for 
minister to Spain, 320, 323 ; lacks 
confidence of French and Spanish 
courts, 320 et seq.; settlement of 
his accounts, 328; nominated to 
treat with Spain; expenses, 349; 
393 n. 3. 

Lee, Charles, duel with John Lau- 
rens, 216, 472 

Lee, Francis Lightfoot, spoken of 
for President of Congress, 235 

Lee, Richard Henry, President of 
Congress, 235 n; elected for 
second time as President of 
Congress, 420; opinions regarding 
Convention of Closter Seven, 248 
n. 2; on Saratoga Convention, 
249; desires fisheries, 341; men- 
tioned, 396 n. I 

Lee, William, 306, 359 

Legare, D., 209 n., 212 n. i 

Leigh, Egerton, friendship and later 
quarrel with Laurens, 103 n.; 144- 
-5, sneers at Laurens's charity, 67 ; 
twits Laurens for abandoning 
slave trade, 89; married to 
Laurens's sister's daughter, 89 
n. 2; tries Laurens's ship, 138; 
offices held by, 139-40; fee from 
Daniel Moore, 140; quarrel with 
Moore, 141 ; fees in cases of 
Laurens's ships, 139; in trial of 
the Ann, 143; threatens to kill 
Circuit Court bill and secures in- 
crease of salary as Attorney Gen- 
eral, 144-5; compelled to resign 
judgeship; defends Roupell, 142, 
144-5; challenges Laurens, 146- 
7; pamphlet by, in Wilkes fund 
dispute, 172; rewarded with 
baronetcy, 103 and n. i, 187 and 
n. I ; character, 103 and n. i., 147, 
187 n. i; his seduction of his 
sister-in-law, 103 and n. i 

L'Enfant, ofScer with Steuben, 236 
n. 

Lewis, Francis, 330, 331, 332 n., 333 

"Liberty Tree, " meeting under, 201 

Little Tennessee River, 510 

Livingston, R. R., politics of, 257 

Lloyd, Caleb, stamp officer, sub- 
dued by mob, 119 

Lloyd, John, on committee regard- 



ing Massachusetts and Virginia 
circular letters of 1768, 155 

Logan, John H., supposed second 
voltmie of his Upper South 
Carolina, 97 n. 

Long Canes, 503 

Lord, Benjamin, 463 

Louis XVI., 484 

Lovell, James, in Conway Cabal, 263, 
266; words in recalling Deane, 
307; opinion of Laurens, 315, 324- 

5 

Low, A. Maurice, error by, regarding 
indentured servitude in South 
Carolina, 48 n. 

Lowndes, Rawlins, popular leader, 
151; Speaker of Commons; liber- 
ates Printer Powell from arrest 
by Council, 173-4; opposes ex- 
treme Revolutionary measures, 
205 ; President of South Carolina, 
302 

Loyalists, 293, 410, 411-12, 491. 
See also Tories. 

Lucas, Auguste, genealogy ff. p. 502 

Lucas, Daniel, 4; genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Lucas, Eliza, 28 

Lucas, Gov. George, of Antigua, 28 

Lucas, Marie, 4, 5; genealogy flE. p. 
502 

Lumber, exports, 23 

Lumley, Lord, 189 

Luttrel, Colonel, runs for Parlia- 
ment against Wilkes, 161 

Luzerne, 393 n. 3. 

Lynch, Thomas, residence, 62 ; pop- 
ular leader, 151, 155 

Lyttleton, Gov. William Henry, 
arrives in South Carolina, 99; 
trouble with Cherokees, 99-100; 
leaves South Carolina, 100; of- 
fends by dismissing WilUam 
Wragg from King's Council in 
South Carolina, 113 

M 

McCrady, Gen. Edward, opinion 
on sentiment of Assembly in 
1768 controverted, 155 n. 3; 
on Wilkes fund matter, 165, 166 
n. 3 ; view of Wilkes fund dispute 
controverted, 175 

Mcintosh, Lachlan, sketch of, 126 
n. 2; mentioned, 378, 380 

McKay, James, 50 



532 



Index 



McKean, Thomas, 235 n., 341 

McKinly, Governor, 288 

McMaster, J. B., quoted on Euro- 
pean travel of Americans, 33 

Madison, James, attacks Laurens, 
396-9; suspicion against R. H. 
Lee, 396 n. 2 

Mahon, Lord, 189 

Maitland, Capt., 142 

Manigault, Ann (error for Eliza- 
beth), 13 n. 

Manigaxilt, Elizabeth, 4, 13 n.; 
genealogy fE. p. 502 

Manigault, Gabriel, prominent mer- 
chant, 44; natural increase among 
his slaves, 72; refuses to par- 
ticipate in slave trade, 74; on 
slave trade, 94; testifies against 
customs officers, 143 n. i.; 
conservative in Revolution, 209 
n.; mentioned, 382 

Manigault, Peter, Speaker of South 
Carolina Commons House of As- 
sembly, 454 n.; presents Massa- 
chusetts and Virginia letters to 
Assembly, 151; conservative 
friend of American liberty, 152 

Manning, Miss, 365, 369 

Manning, EUzabeth, 466 n. 2 

Manning, Cardinal Henry Edward, 
nephew of Mrs. John Laurens, 
466 and n. 2 ; genealogy ff . p. 502 

Manning, John, 466 n. 2 

Manning, Martha ("Patty"). See 
Mrs. John Laurens, wife of Lt.- 
Col. John Laurens. 

Manning, Mary, 466 n. 2 

Manning, "Patty." See Martha 
Manning. 

Manning, Sarah (Mrs. Benjamin 
Vaughn), 466 n. 2; genealogy flf. 
p. 502 

Manning, William, Sr., Laurens's 
banker, 50, 52, 185, 298 n. 2; 
befriends Laurens in Tower, 365, 
366, 369, 370, 372, 380, 382, 383, 
384; daughter marries John Lau- 
rens, 464-5, 465 n. 2; wealth, 
social standing, and family, 466 
and n. 2, 467; relations with John 
Laurens, 467; genealogy ff. p. 
502 

Manning, William, Jr., 466 n. 2; 
genealogy ff. p. 502 

Manning, William Coventry, See 
William Manning, Sr. 

Mansfield, Lord Justice, in Wilkes 



trial, 160, 161 ; Somerset decision, 
187 and n. 3, 191; releases Lau- 
rens from Tower, 388 

Marbois (Marquis Frangois de 
Barbe-Marbois), his intercepted 
letter, 407-8 

Marchand, Jeanne, 4; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 

Marcon, Capt., 13 n. 

Marion, Francis, in Cherokee war 
of 1761, 102 

Marriage, age of, 502 

Maryland, slaves and free negroes 
in, 91, 92; 285 n. 3. 

Massachusetts, Assembly of, ad- 
dresses letter in 1768 to other 
colonies on taxation, 151; en- 
dorsed by South Carolina As- 
sembly, 155; Laurens petitions 
against acts of Parliament pun- 
ishing, 197; mentioned, 285 n. 3, 
288 

Massacre, by Cherokees, 1758-9, 
99; in 1760, 100, loi; in Revolu- 
tion, 107 

Matthewes, John, 288, 292, 491 

Mazyck, Isaac, 44 

Meat exports, 23 

Mechanics, a separate class; in 
poUtics, 124 

Medici, Marie de', 2 n. 

Menigaut. See Manigault. 

Mepkin plantation, 21; situation, 
32, 125; description of, 458; 
Laurens purchases, 125; products 
of, 130-3; Laurens's life at, 423 et 
seq.; Ford's description of; new 
house at, 424; graves at, 492 and 
n. ; description of, 492; present 
condition, 492 

Merchants, in colonial South Car- 
olina, 44; as a class; in politics, 
124; bankers called merchants, 
50 

Mercury (ship), 358 

Mercury, the Charleston, 431 

Methuen treaty, 30 

Middleton, Arthur, aggressive Re- 
volutionary leader, 205, 215, 
226 n. I, 227, 233, 302 

Middleton, Thomas, in Cherokee 
war of 1 761, loi, 104-5; relations 
with Henry Laurens, 103; quarrel 
and duel with Col. James Grant, 
104-5, 216 n. 

Middleton family, 28 

Mifflin, Thomas, President of Con- 



Index 



533 



gress, 235 n.; in Conway Cabal, 
263, 266, 267 

Mile Creek, 505-6 and n., 509 n. 

Mississippi River, navigation of, 
339-40 

Money, coin sent to meet bills of 
exchange, 51. See also paper 
money. 

Montagu, Governor Lord Charles 
Greville, of South Carolina, urges 
Assembly to condemn Massa- 
chusetts and Virginia letters, 155; 
calls Assembly to meet in 
Beaufort, 169; on usurpations by 
Commons, 170 

Montgomery, Col. Archibald (from 
1769, Earl of Eglinton), expedi- 
tion in 1760 against Cherokees, 
43, lOO-I 

MontpeUier, 395; University of, 2 
n. I 

Moore, Daniel, advises seizure of 
Laurens's ship, 138; fee to Leigh, 
140; quarrel with Leigh; indicted 
for extortion; nose puUed by 
Laurens ; challenges Laurens ; 
leaves South Carolina, 141; ship- 
wreck, 141-2 ; removed from office, 
142; challenges Laurens, 216 n. 

Moral conditions in England and 
colonies contrasted, 185 

Moravians, 183; Laurens seeks, for 
immigrants, 455-6 

Morris, Gouverneur, 288, 340, 341 

Morris, Robt., politics of, 257, 297; 
friend of Deane, 308 ; services on 
Secret and Commerce Commit- 
tees, 329; angry with Laurens; 
part owner of the Phoenix; his 
integrity questioned, 330; vin- 
dicated, 333-4; commerce during 
war, 350 

Morris, Thomas, 289 

Motto, Laurens's, 16, 18, 440 

Moultrie, Dr. John, 59, 457. (It 
is impossible to determine whether 
the Dr. Moultrie here referred to 
is Dr. John Moultrie, Sr., or his 
son mentioned in the next refer- 
ence.) 

Moultrie, Dr. John, Jr., Major in 
Cherokee war of 1761, loi 

Moultrie, Gen. William, 219; ex- 
changed, 394; mentioned, 477 

Mt. Tacitus, plantation, 21 ; location 
and products, 130 

Music, 32 



N 



Nantes, 395 

Narrative, Laurens's, manuscript 
material for, 358 n. ; 435 

Necker, Jacques, 484 

Negroes, number in South Carolina 
in 1748, 20; number of free negroes 
in Virginia and South Carolina, 
91 n. 3; in certain States, 92; 
disease among, since 1865, 73; 
provision of shoes, clothes, etc., 
for, 132 ; care of, on the plantation, 
133 et seq.; in England, 187 and 
n. 3,191; Laurens's ideas on 
emancipation of, 390; manumis- 
sion of, in South Carolina; plot 
insurrection 1739, 82; ditto 1822, 
456; insurrection of, feared in 
1766, 120; insurrection of, feared 
in 1775, 214; Laurens on negroes 
as troops, 356, 448-51 ; John Lau- 
rens desires negro troops, 475, 488 ; 
vote of South Carolina Legislature 
on question of negro troops, 488 ; 
as soldiers in Revolution, 448 
n. 3; in treaty of peace, 402, 405. 
See also Slaves, Slave Trade, and 
Slavery. 

Netherlands, 288, 349; proposed 
treaty captured in Laurens's 
papers, 358-9; attacked by Eng- 
land, 360-1 

Neufville, John de, testifies against 
customs officers, 143 n. i ; 359 

Newberry County, slavery drives 
out white population, 452 n., 453, 
503 

Newburg Addresses, 292 

Newcastle, Duke of, ignorance of 
American conditions, 167; 510 

New England, active in slave trade, 
91-4; smuggling, 55; interest in 
fisheries, 340-1, 398, 407 

New Hampshire, 285 n. 3 

New Hope plantation, 21, 130 

New Jersey, 285 n. 3 

New York, first theatre in, 33; 285 
n. 3 

Nicholson, Governor Sir Francis, 39 

Nimmons, Mr., 507 n. 2 

Ninety-Six, plantation at, 21; en- 
gagement at, in 1775, 217, 220 

Noailles, Viscount de, 487 

Non-importation Association in 
1767-9, 69, 70, 156; degree of 
success, 158 



534 



Index 



Norris, Lieutenant, 363 n. i. 

North, Lord, his plan of concilia- 
tion, 296; mentioned, 363, 391 

North Carolina, indentured servi- 
tude in, 48 ; slaves and free negroes 
in, 91, 92; Indians in, 107-8; 
delegates from, quarrel with 
Laurens, 342 ; Moravians in, 455 ; 
mentioned, 285 n. 3 

Nutt, John, 379, 380, 382, 383 



O 



Occonostota, 100 

Odell, Jonathan, passage on Lau- 
rens quoted from his "American 
Times," 303 n. 2 

Oglethorpe, James Edward, 43 

Oranges, 23 

Osgood, Samuel, 398 

Oswald, Richard, sends slaves to 
South Carolina, 74; invests in 
Florida lands, 127; declines to 
invest in South Carolina back 
country, 128; sketch of, 127 n. 2; 
relations with Laurens in Tower, 
369, 370, 371, 372, 380, 384, 387; 
on Laurens's bail, 388; visits 
continent with Laurens, 392-3; 
opinion of Laurens, 397 n. i ; 
mentioned, 185, 298 n. 2 

Overseers, 21 ; directions and duties, 
133-5; difficulty of securing good 
overseers; wages of, 135 

Owen, Mr., 427 

Oxford, conditions at, in i8th cen- 
tury, 188 



Paca, William, 321-3 

Paine, Thomas, his Common Sense in 
S. C, 221; 323, 332 

Palatine trade. See Indentured 
servants. 

Panton, Rev., 463 

Paper money, issues and deprecia- 
tion of, in South Carolina, 44, 81 
n.; Continental, value of, 284; 
amount of, 285. See also Bills 
of credit. 

Parke, Col. 332, n. 

Parsons, James, popular leader, 151, 

155 
Parties in South Carolina in 1778, 

302 
Peas, exports, 23 



Penn, John, 232, 233, 332 n., 348 

Penn, Lady Juliana, 412 

Pennsylvania, contest over author- 
ity of Governor in, 167; 285 n. 3 

P^rigny, 4 

Perry, B. F., on John Laurens's 
marriage, 466 

Petrie, Alexander, genealogy fif. p. 
502 

Pettigrew, J. Johnson, opposes 
reopening of foreign slave trade, 
92 n. 4 

" Philolethes, " 332 n. 

Phoenix, 330 

Pickens, Andrew, in Cherokee war 
of 1761, 102 

Piercy, Rev. William, 391 

Pinckney, Chief Justice Charles, 62 

Pinckney, Charles (father of Gov. 
Charles Pinckney), conservative 
friend of American liberty, 152; 
155, 205 and n. 3, 219, 226 n. i 

Pinckney, Gov. Charles, marries 
Eleanor Laurens, 70 n. i, 179, 
205 n. 3; trustee of Charleston 
College, 179, 205 n. 3, 492; 
genealogy ff. p. 502 

Pinckney, Mrs. Charles (wife of 
Gov. Charles Pinckney). See 
Mary Eleanor Laurens. 

Pinckney, Mrs. Eliza Lucas, 28 

Pinckney, Frances Henrietta, gen- 
ealogy ff. p. 502 

Pinckney, Henry Laurens, 431; 
genealogy £f. p. 502 

Pinopolis, 32 

Pitt, William, the elder, ministry 
of 1766, 150; takes up cause of 
Wilkes, 161, 175 

Pitt, William (the younger), 410 

Plantations owned by Laurens, 
21. See also Overseers, Rice, 
Indigo, Industry, Slaves, Slav- 
ery, Negroes. 

Planters, social distinction of; a 
separate class, 124 

Politics, classes in, in South Car- 
olina, 124; in South Carolina 
preceding Revolution, 151 ei seg., 
153, 164 passim; about 1750, 35; 
in 1778, 302 

Population of South Carolina in 
1748, 20; 1710, 20-1 

Porcher, Prof. F. A., quoted on 
deer hunting, 31 

Portland, Duke of, 41 1 

Portugal, trade with, 23 ; 30 



Index 



535 



Potatoes, exports, 23 

Poupin (or Poupain), Martha, 5; 

genealogy ff. p. 502 
Powder, etc., seized in South 

Carolina, 205 
Powell, G. G., liberates Thomas 

Powell from arrest by Council, 

174; leader in Revolutionary 

organizations, 151, 200 ei seq., 

204, 454 and n. 
Powell, Thomas, 173 
Presbyterians, 178 
Presidents of Continental Congress, 

list of, with dates, 235 n. 
Prevost, Gen. Augustine, 476-7 
Price, Dr. Richard, 390; writings 

against slavery, 452 and n. 3, 

453 

Price, Hest & Head, 69 

Prices, table of, 25-6 

Priestley, Joseph, 327-8 n. 

Princeton College, 178 n., 179 

Pringle, Robert, prominent mer- 
chant, 44 

Proclamation money, 54-5 

Proprietary government of South 
Carolina overthrown, 36 

Provincial Congress, First South 
Carolina, 204-5, 206, 213; second 
South Carolina, 213, 218, 220 



Q 



Quakers, 452 n. 
Qualla Indian Reservation, 108 
Quarantine, slave ship in, 77 
Quit rents, 27 



R 



Ramsay, David, on shipbuilding, 24; 
on drunkenness, 29; work and 
sleep, 46; on relations of Laurens 
and Gadsden, 106; trustee of 
Charleston College, 179; makes 
Martha Laurens his third wife, 
106, 179, 430, 463 n. 2; genealogy 
ff. p. 502 
Ramsay, Mrs. David. See Martha 

Laurens. 
Ramsay, Major David, 451 n. 2 
Randolph, Peyton, 235 n., 317 
Rattlesnakes, prevalence of, in low- 
country woods, 32; Laurens ap- 
parently served one on his table; 
eaten by Indians, 64 n. 3 
Raven. See Corane. 



Ravenel, Mrs. H. H., her life of 
Mrs. Pinckney, 28; quoted, 57 
n. I, 62 n. 4 

Reed, Joseph, 298 

Regulators in North and South 
Carolina, 171 

Religious denominations, 21 

Requisitions, amounts paid, 285 n. 3 

Resolue, La, 485 

Revolution, first fighting in, in S. C, 
219 

Rhode Island, active in slave trade, 
91 et seq. ',28511. 3. 

Rice, exports, 22; methods of cul- 
tivation, 74 

Richardson, Colonel Richard (the 
elder), 220 

Richland County, 503 

Richmond, Duke of, 391 and n. 3, 
393 n. I, 424 

Riedesel, Baron Friedrich Adolph 
von, 244 

Riedesel, Madame Friedrich Adolph 
von, 244 

Rivers, Hannah, genealogy fi. p. 502 

Rivers, Prof. Wm. J., quoted on 
constitutional development of 
South Carolina, 43 

Rivington's Gazette, 303, 347 

Roberdeau, Daniel. 229, 271 

Robinson, Major Joseph, 219 

Robinson, Sir Thomas, 509 n. 

Roderique Hortalez & Co. See 
Hortalez. 

Rochelle, 4 

Rockingham, Marquis of, 391 and 
n. 3:293 n. I 

Roper, Mrs, Martha R., 451 n. 2 

Roupell, George, seizes Laurens's 
ships, 138, 139, 142-4; Laurens 
awarded damages against, 142 

Rush, Benjamin, in Conway Cabal, 
263; anonymous letter against 
Washington, 270 

Russia, 288, 361-2. See also Cath- 
arine II. 

Rutledge, Andrew, prominent mer- 
chant, 44 

Rutledge, Edward, popular leader, 
151; his negroes fed by Laurens, 
429 

Rutledge, Eliza, marnes Henry 
Laurens, Jr., 431; genealogy fif. 
p. 502 

Rutledge, John, m 1768 a leader of 
progressivesin South Carolina, 151 
and n. 2, 155; strives for college. 



536 



Index 



179, 431 ; opposes extreme revolu- 
tionary movement, 205, 221; 
President of S. C; opposes inde- 
pendence, 222-3; resigns Presi- 
dency, 223, 302; leaves Conti- 
nental Congress, 227; proposes 
neutrality of South Carolina, 
450; genealogy ff. p. 502 
Ryan, Elizabeth, 466 n. 2; gen- 
ealogy, ff . p. 502 



St. Cecilia Society, 32-3 

St. Clair, Arthur, 235 n. 

St. Eustatius, 360, 361 

St. John, Rev., 57 

St. Michael's Church (Charleston), 

history of chimes of, 416 and n. 3 
St. Paul's Parish, 36 
St. Philip's Parish, population and 

death rate in, 58 
Salary of ministers, 349 
Salley, A. S., Jr., quoted, 70 n. 2, 

509, n. 
Saluda County, 503 
Saratoga, Convention of, suspended, 

250:243 
Saxby, George, stamp officer, sub- 
dued by mob, 119 
Scarlet fever, 182 
Schools in Charleston, 177-8; See 

also Education. 
Schuyler, General Philip John, 318 
Secret Committee, of Continental 

Congress, 329; in South Carolina 

in Revolution, 205, 215 
Serapis, 360 
Shelburne, Earl of (Marquis of 

Lansdowne from 1784), Secretary 

of State, 150, 391 and n. 3, 392, 

393. 394 and n. i 
Sherman, Roger, 288 
Shinner, Charles. See Charles Skin- 
ner. 
Shipbuilding, 24 
Shubrick, Capt. Richard, 477 
Silk exports, 23 
Simms, William Gilmore, comment 

on John Laurens's marriage, 466 

n. I 
Sinclair, Mr., 400 n., 401 n. 
Sinnawa, Cherokee chief, 507 n. 
Skinner, Charles, overridden in 

attempt to enforce Stamp Act, 

121; 137 
Slave trade, foreign, commissions 



in, 47; methods of payment, 75; 
carried on by most respectable 
merchants, 74; colonial efforts to 
check vetoed by British govern- 
ment, 76; discriminating and 
prohibitory import duties, 80 
et seq.; import duties on, 82-7; 
prohibitive duties, 82-6 et seq.; 
New England's part in, 91-4; 
movement in the 1850's to re- 
open 92 n. 4; suffering on ships, 

79 

Slavery, Somerset decision, 187 
and n. 3, 191 ; opinion of members 
of Laurens family on, 445-55 
and notes passim; emancipation 
sentiment in South Carolina, 
446-7, 451-2, n.; effects on 
South Carolina, 452 n., 453-4; 
John Laurens's views on, 474-5 

Slaves, Laurens's kindness to his, 
65-8; natural increase of, 72; 
number in Maryland, Virginia, 
North and South Carolina, 91; 
ordinary internal taxes upon, 80; 
discriminating and prohibitory 
import duties upon, 80 et seq.; 
objection to those from Spanish 
or other English colonies, 77; 
criminal slaves sold into other 
colonies, 77 and 77 n. 3; in- 
surrection in 1739, 82; feared in 
1766, 120; Vesey plot of 1822 
among, 77 n. 3 ; qualities of those 
from various sections of Africa, 
76-7 and 77 n. i; prices, 78, 87; 
suicide among, 76-7 and 77 n. 
See also Slavery, Slave trade, and 
Negroes. 

Smallpox, 436; in Charleston, 59; 
on slave ships, 79; on Calabar 
slave ship; ditto Jamaica slave 
ship; spreading in Charleston 
and surrounding country, 80 

Smith, Benjamin, prominent mer- 
chant, 44; opposes slave trade, 
85-6 

Smith, Meriwether, 347-8 

Smith, William, of Maryland, 234 

Smith, Senator William, of South 
Carolina, 92 

Smith, Prof. W. Roy, quoted on 
constitutional development of 
South Carolina, 43 

SmuggUng, by New Englanders, 55 ; 
comparative rarity in South 
Carolina, 55 



Index 



537 



SnuflEbox presented to John Laurens 
by Louis XVI; later history of, 
487 

Social customs, 502; Laurens re- 
bukes De Verne for proposing 
without knowledge of lady's 
father, 29; rich merchants be- 
come planters, 123 et.seq^.; distinc- 
tion of land owning; class dis- 
tinctions, 124; plantation homes 
and city summer homes, 125; 
441 n. 2. See also Aristocracy, 
Moral conditions, and Society. 

Society, South Carolina, in middle 
of eighteenth century, 28 et seq. ; 
South Carolina and Virginia, 7, 8. 
See also Aristocracy, Moral con- 
ditions, and Social customs. 

Society of the Supporters of the Bill 
of Rights, 162-3 

Somerset negro case, 187 and n. 3, 
191 

South Carolina, prosperity in i8th 
century, 20 et seq. ; population in 
1710 and 1748, 20-21; religious 
denominations, 21; society in 
middle of eighteenth century, 28 
et seq. ; representation in 1786, 36; 
intimate connection with England, 
33; absorption of Governor's 
power by the Assembly, 37; 
never assisted by royal troops 
until 1760, 43; slaves and free 
negroes in, 91, 92; great prosper- 
ity before Revolution, 126; Corn- 
mons House addresses to their 
Agent Charles Garth a protest 
against taxation by Parliament; 
conservative and progressive par- 
ties in, before Revolution, 151; 
endorses Massachusetts circular 
letters of 1768, 155; deadlock in 
Assembly 1769-75, 173; evolu- 
tion of organs of revolution in, 
200 et seq. ; First Provincial Con- 
gress, 204-5, 206, 213; Second 
Provincial Congress, 213, 218, 
220; first fighting of Revolution 
in, 219; formation of Constitution 
of 1776, 221; of 1778, 301, 476; 
defends slavery in votes on 
Articles of Confederation, 232; 
payment of requisition, 285 n. 3; 
party politics in 1778, 302; origin 
of Democratic party in, 430; 
exhaustion in Revolution ; resents 
neglect by Congress, 449-50; 



reception of proposal for negro 
troops, 450, 452; sentiment on 
slavery in time of Revolution, 
446; later anti-slavery sentiment, 
451 n. 2; effect of slavery on, 452 
n., 453-4; held by British, 488; 
vote of Legislature on negro 
troops proposition, 488; acquisi- 
tion of land from Cherokees, 503 
et seq.; encourages immigration, 
47, 67-8, 456 and n. 3 

South Carolina Society, the, 70 

Spain, 288, 339, 340, 360 

Spanish dollars, 48, 54 

Spartanburg County, 503 

Stamp Act, ii6et seq. ; rejoicing over 
repeal of, 121 

Stanhope, Lord, 189 

Stanyarne, James, 8 

Starke, General John, 272 

Stay laws, 428-9 

Steele, J. E. M., 507, 508 

Steele, Capt. Robert M., 507 

Steuben, Baron von, dissatisfied 
with his and his friends' treat- 
ment, 236 n. ; his rank in Europe, 
238, n.; mentioned, 265, n. 

Stirling. See William Alexander. 

Stock, Mrs., John Laurens enter- 
tained at her home ; killed on her 
plantation, 488-9 

Story, Judge Joseph, denounces 
slave trade by New England 
traders, 93-4 

Story, W. W., his Life of Judge 
Story quoted on slave trade in 
New England, 93-4 

Sugar, trade in, 47 

Suicide among slaves, 76-7 and 
77 n. I 

Sullivan, General John, criticizes 
Washington, 266 

Sweden, 288 



Taxation, internal, on slaves and 
other property, 80; ordinary and 
discriminating import duties on 
slaves, 80 et seq. 

Tea, Laurens on the tea tax, Boston 
tea party, and South Carolina's 
action, 193 et seq.; treatment of, 
in South Carolina, 200-203 

Tennent, Rev. William, 211 and n., 
212 n. I 

Theatre, 33 



538 



Index 



Thetis, 471 

Thomson, Charles, quarrels with 
Laurens, 316 ef seg. 

Thomson, Brigadier General Wil- 
liam, 312 

Timberlake, Lieutenant Henry, 510 

Timothy, Peter, opposes slave trade, 
87, 94; radical editor of South 
Carolina Gazette, iii, 215 

Todd, Henry, Jr., 48 

Todd, Richard, 48 

Tories, 213; in arms in 1775, 217, 
219; cowed, 220; operations, 220. 
See also Loyalists 

Townshend, Charles, usurps leader- 
ship of ministry, 150; measures 
to tax America, 151 

Trade and Navigation Acts, 498 

Trapier, Paul, 226 n. i. 

Travel, European, 33 

Treaty, between South Carolina 
and Cherokees, 1721, 1730, 96; 
ditto 1753, 98; ditto 1761, 102; 
ditto 1777, 107; with United 
States regarding South Carolina 
in 18 16, 107; question of a com- 
mercial; urged by Laurens, 410- 
II, 420; of 1783, 402, 405; ques- 
tion of separate "peace with 
England, 391, 392-3, 400, 401 
n., 403-8; discussion of terms for 
peace with England, 339 et seq. 

Tucker, Dean Josiah, 193 ' ' 

TumbuU, Andrew, 51 

Turtle River, plantation, 21; 130 

Tuscany, 308 n. 2 

Tyler, Prof. M. C, estimate of 
Laurens's Narrative, 435; estimate 
of Laurens, 442 



U 



Union County, 503 

United States, debts of treasury of, 

to Henry and James Laurens, 

427-8 
Up country, secures courts, 129; 

lack of representation and courts; 

parish lines run out by certain 

persons for voting, 171 
Usury. See Interest rate. 



Valley Forge, 267 

Van Berkel, 359, 361, 362 

Vaughn, Benjamin, opinion of Lau- 



rens, 397 n. 2.; mentioned, 403, 

413, 466 n. 2, 467; genealogy ff. 

p. 502 
Vaughn, Mrs. Benjamin. See Sara 

Manning 
Venereal disease, among negroes 

since 1865, 73; during slavery, 

73 

Vergennes, Count de, 281 n., 393 
and n. 3, 405-6, 407; opinion of 
John Laurens, 482-4, 484 n. i, 
486-7 

Verne. See De Verne 

Vernon, General, 363, 367, 382, 386 

Vesey, Denmark (free negro), his 
plot of 1822, 77 n. 3; 456 

Vestal, 358 

Vice Admiralty. See Admiralty 
Court. 

Vigan, 226, 395, 414 

Virginia, slaves and free negroes in, 
91; expedition of 1761 against 
Cherokees, 103; House of Burr 
gesses of, addresses letter in 1 768 
to other colonies on taxation, 
151; endorsed by South Carolina 
Assembly, 155; position in shap- 
ing articles of Confederation, 232 
et seq., 285 n. 3 

Voltaire, 440 



W 



Waddel, Dr. Moses, 441 n. 2. 

Waldgrave, Countess of, marries 
Duke of Gloucester, 186 

Walterboro, 32 

Wambaw, 1^6 et seq. 

Washington, George, never in Lau- 
rens house in Charleston, 63 n. i ; 
opposed to sending youth abroad, 
177 n. 2; opinions regarding 
Saratoga Convention, 248; politi- 
cal views of, 257; disrespect for, 
in Congress, 269; attitude towards 
France, 276, 278-9; opposes in- 
vasion of Canada, 278-9; criti- 
cizes American officials, 286; 
half pay question, 291-5; reply 
to Newburg Addresses, 292 and 
n. 3; returns money to Laurens, 
295 ; opinion on fisheries, 341 ; 
esteem for Laurens, 442 ; opposes 
raising negro troops, 450; prob- 
ably did not nominate John Lau- 
rens for European mission, 479- 
So; opinion of John Laurens, 489 



Index 



539 



Washington, Samuel, five wives, 58 

Washington plantation, 424 

Watson, E. J., 456 n. 3 

Watson, John, Laurens's gardener, 
64 

Waxhaws, 178 

Wayne, Anthony, criticizes Wash- 
ington, 266 

Wells, Robert, conservative editor 
of the South Carolina Weekly 
Gazette, etc., iii 

Wesley, John, on slavery, 94 

West Indies, communication with 
South Carolina, 10; trade with, 

Wharton, Francis, mjustice to Laur- 
ens, 198 n., 260, 350-2, 403 

Whiskey, trade in, by slaves, 133 

Whitaker, Mr., 451 n. 2 

White, Mrs., 133 

White, John, 471 

"White Eyes" (George IIL?), 366 

Whitefield, George, 391 

Wicking, Elizabeth, ii, 18; geneal- 
ogy flf. p. 502 

Wiggins, Mr., 134 n. 3. 

Wilkes, John, contest with King 
and ministers; enthusiasm for, in 
South Carolina, 154; interest in 
his case in South Carolina, 159; 
prosecution of, etc.; elected to 
Parliament, 160, 161; elected 
alderman, sheriff. Lord Mayor, 



161; his services to liberty, 161- 
2; 366 n. 2 

Wilkinson, James, 266 and n. 4 
Williamsburg, Va., first theatre in, 

33 

Williamson, Major Andrew, 219-20 

Willing, Morris & Co., 330 

Wilson, James, 229 

Wine drinking in South Carolina, 
30 

Winson Green, 188, 190 

Wittekind, 456 and n. 3 

Wragg, William, prominent mer- 
chant, 44; dismissed from King's 
Council in South Carolina; a 
supporter of the King, 113; leader 
of conservatives, 152; denies right 
of South Carolina Commons to 
appropriate money for Wilkes 
fund, 167 

Wright, Chief Justice Robert, quar- 
rel with Commons House, 39 

Wright, Thomas. 42 n. ; fight with 
LaurenS; 11 1 

Wright's Savannah, plantation, 21, 
130-1 



York County, 503 
Yorktown, funds for campaign, 485 
Yorktown, Pa., Congress at, 232 
Young, Moses, 308 n. 2, 358, 362, 
364 a. I. 



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